3-Year-Old's Failed Password Attempts Lock Family iPad For Nearly 50 Years, Facepalm
Reason number one not to leave your electronic gadgets within unsupervised reach of a toddler is because, at best, they'll turn into a sticky mess. At worst, however, they will find a way to break it. Reason number two is because they might lock you out of the device...for five decades! We are not being facetious (maybe a little), that exact thing recently happened.
Evan Osnos, a staff writer for The New Yorker, posted a hilariously disturbing image to Twitter. Apparently his toddler tried multiple times to unlock his iPad, until finally the security feature locked it down for 25,536,442 minutes. In case you are wondering, there are 525,600 minutes in a regular year (not counting Leap Year). Evan's iPad was essentially locked down for over 48 years.
Uh, this looks fake but, alas, it’s our iPad today after 3-year-old tried (repeatedly) to unlock. Ideas? pic.twitter.com/5i7ZBxx9rW
— Evan Osnos (@eosnos) April 6, 2019
"Uh, this looks fake but, alas, it's our iPad today after 3-year-old tried (repeatedly) to unlock. Ideas?," Evan wrote on Twitter.
Twitter did not disappoint in his request for assistance. One user offered up this bit of advice: "Reboot your 3 y.o." Another suggested time travel as his best bet. And of course there was no shortage of memes.
Pour one out in memory of your iPad. pic.twitter.com/9WxvmtCC78
— Cynthia Lee (@cynthiablee) April 6, 2019
That is to be expected on Twitter, though fellow twits also came through in the end, pointing Evan to a relatively easy fix. One such path is to restore the iPad. The downside, however, is that any data on the iPad that has not been backed up would be lost following a restore. And unfortunately for Evan, his iPad was apparently running an older version of iOS that would not allow a fresh restart from iTunes.
It all worked out in the end, though.
Update on toddler-iPad-lock-out: Got it into DFU mode (don’t hold down the sleep/power button too long or you end up in recovery). Now restoring. Thanks to those who shared advice!
— Evan Osnos (@eosnos) April 9, 2019
"Update on toddler-iPad-lock-out: Got it into DFU mode (don't hold down the sleep/power button too long or you end up in recover). Now restoring. Thanks to those who shared advice!," Evan wrote in a followup tweet.
DFU (Device Firmware Update) allows iOS devices to be restored from any state. In Evan's case, it meant not having to wait five decades to unlock his iPad.
Top Image Source: Twitter via Evan Osnos