Whatever you do, do not set your iPhone to this date

Even iPhones know that sometimes the past should stay in the past, especially if by “past” you mean January 1st, 1970. While it’s crazy that we can change the date of our phones to a time before smartphones even existed, it is possible to a certain extent. Push it too far, however, and you have a dead iPhone on your hands. And no we are not pulling your leg.

iPhone users discovered that changing the date of the phone in “Settings” to January 1st, 1970 causes the device to “brick,” or essentially turn off without ever turning back on again.

The good news is that it’s highly unlikely you could ever do this by accident. Manually changing the date of the iPhone to a time 30 years ago is pretty tedious, but if you really wanted to try, this video shows exactly what happens:

However, we wouldn’t recommend it. Once your phone is “bricked,” it can only be fixed by an Apple store employee or getting a whole new phone altogether.

Luckily, this bug is soon to be a thing of the past. After it went viral over these past few weeks, Apple came up with plans to fix the issue in the next software update. Until then, keep your phone close and your enemies far, far away, lest you risk a full-on iPhone war.