iPad Locked For 48 Years After Continuously Entered Wrong Passwords By A Kid

Arnav Dhar - Apr 21, 2019

A content-craving three-year-old in Washington tried to unlock his parents iPad so many times its been locked up for about 48 years.

In a world full of risks for personal data, passwords and protective features on mobile devices become essential. While having great abilities in keeping others from accessing your devices, it can lead to unrepairable or even hilarious events when wrongly used, especially if it is by a kid.

That's exactly what happened in Washington recently when a 3-year-old kid attempted to access the parents' iPad for multiple times that resulted in locking the poor device for...nearly 50 years. His dad, who is currently writing for the New Yorker, has tweeted about this incident.

It seems the innocent child was just wanting to watch some favorite Youtube videos while giving whatever it took to unlock the device and ended up being discovered by his parents. According to Osnos' screenshot, the iPad would be temporarily locked for exactly 25,536,442 minutes at the time. That equals about 48 years and 202 days, meaning the kid will be able to enjoy the iPad again when he finally has presbyopia.

His story became viral and many came to his Tweet to give advice. Some were very helpful when telling him to restore the iPad, and some others were just making jokes about the situation. Finally, the dad announced on his Twitter account that he successfully have it into DFU mode to restore the system.

Funny as it was, this incident reinforces how strict Apple is with its users' privacy policy. We should not forget that after the 2015 San Bernandino assault, FBI got the suspect's iPhone but was unable to unlock it. When they asked Apple to make a backdoor, the company refused to do so. Finally, the investigators had to have a 3rd party company do it for them.