Toddler Accidentally Locks Mother's iPhone for 47 Years
Whether you’re willing to admit it or not, we are all reliant on technology in one way or another.
Newpapers are being cast aside in favor of far more convenient digital mediums and news sources. Even if you aren’t using a computer to access that information, chances are you have a television to catch up on news and stay informed.
But the one thing most of us have learned to depend upon over the years is a cell phone.
With them, parents these days can rest assured that for the most part, they can contact their children whenever they need them. Teenagers are able to chat with their friends after school hours, and if you have a smart phone, you know they’ve become so advanced that they can even function as tiny computers.
So naturally, when our phones stop functioning, life can feel like it has stopped dead in its tracks. A now-vital form of communication, being unable to use it for even a few hours can feel like an eternity.
One mother in Shanghai, China, learned this the hard way when she gave her son her iPhone to watch educational videos.
While it is unclear how long the child had the phone, it was enough time for him to do some serious damage.
When his mother got her phone back, she was shocked to see that she was locked out of it for a staggering 25,114,984 minutes.
And for those of you that haven’t done the math, that amount of time is equal to 47 years.
On an iPhone, if a user consistently enters the wrong passcode, the device’s security feature will lock them out for a determined amount of time. If they keep entering an incorrect code, the amount of time grows.
And when you are completely locked out of your phone, your only options are to wait it out or reset everything and risk the loss of your data, photos, and more.
Surprisingly, though, this mom actually attempted to wait it out! She made it through two months, hoping the issue would resolve itself, but nothing has changed.
And it looks like she’s decided to give up on waiting half a century to use her phone again. “I couldn’t really wait for 47 years and tell my grandchild it was your father’s mistake,” she reportedly said.
The good news, however, is that this issue can be avoided. If your phone is not jailbroken, meaning you are still using only official Apple software on your phone, it will simply be disabled, without the terrifying time limit on the screen, until you can verify your identity.
The brand now offers multiple ways to make sure you can still access your information if you get locked out, including saving a back-up of your phone or verifying your identity with a code sent to a second device. So make sure you go in and update your settings to make sure you won’t lose anything.
Even so, this story is a good warning for all of us out there that tend to let our kids and grandkids play with our phones. Just make sure the next time the kiddos want to watch those educational videos, you’ll be able to recover your phone data if things go awry.
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