Toddler-iPad-lock-out’: 3-year-old boy disables tablet for 25 million minutes
A 3-year-old boy tried to unlock his family’s iPad this weekend. He ended up disabling it for nearly 50 years.
The toddler’s father asked for help on Twitter, sharing a photo of a device message reading “try again in 25,536,442 minutes.” Some users suggested waiting it out until 2067 … when the toddler would be in his 50s.
“Uh, this looks fake but, alas, it’s our iPad today after 3-year-old tried (repeatedly) to unlock. Ideas?” tweeted Evan Osnos, a a staff writer at The New Yorker and a fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Other users offered sympathy. One user advised Osnos to “reboot” his toddler, while another jokingly told him to put the tablet in a bag of rice.
The toddler triggered the security feature by repeatedly entering incorrect passwords. Apple suggests locked-out users restore their device, which will result in the loss of data if not backed up.
After tweeting his dilemma Saturday, Osnos told the New York Daily News on Monday his family still could not use the tablet.
“It’s down a few hundred minutes from yesterday, but it looks like we’ve still got 25 million minutes to go,” Osnos told the newspaper. “On Twitter, people have suggested various fixes but the consensus seems to be that we’re using an old operating system that won’t let us restart fresh from iTunes.”
By Tuesday morning, Osnos tweeted that he had managed to start restoring the device after putting it in Device Firmware Update mode. Osnos did not indicate whether he will give his toddler the new password.
“Thanks to those who shared advice!” he tweeted.
