It looks like the now infamous Error 53 has caused a black eye for Apple, as a class-action lawsuit has been filed against Apple, citing that the tech company's actions happen to be a violation of California's Unfair Competition Law. Just to get a better grasp of what the controversial Error 53 is all about, it is an iOS Time/Date bug which will end up bricking your precious handset.
Law firm Pfau Cochran Vertetis Amala (PCVA) happened to be the ones who filed a class-action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, and in the lawsuit, cited that Apple's Error 53 would ensure that the iPhone 6 or newer models would be "bricked," or made useless, claiming that such actions are tantamount to "negligence" and happens to have violated California's Unfair Competition Law - without excluding the violation of other statutes, too.
PCVA wrote, "As alleged in this Complaint, Apple has been unjustly enriched as a result of its wrongful conduct and unfair competition. Plaintiffs and the Class members are accordingly entitled to equitable relief including restitution and/or disgorgement of all revenues, earnings, profits, compensation, and benefits which may have been obtained by Apple as a result of such business practices. The phones are bricked after users install a phone update. Once bricked the phone is essentially useless."
Just what is Error 53 in detail? This bug has everything to do with the date and time system in iOS, where activating the bug is as simple as changing your iOS device's date to January 1st, 1970. Do bear in mind that doing so would permanently brick your device, so it is in your best interest to avoid that from happening, and you might not want to hand over your iPhone to a friend who is well known for playing practical jokes in the past as he/she might just have itchy fingers. Instead, if you would like to fulfill your curiosity, this YouTube video would reveal how the bricking process works.
It is a no brainer as to how one can change the date and time settings; simply head to the Settings app, select the General menu, pick Date & Time, and then render the Set Automatically option as off. Scroll through the menu until it arrives as far back as possible, before heading back to the General menu, and then the Date & Time settings, before performing more scrolling in the backwards process. Rinse and repeat this process until you arrive at 1970.
Once done with your iOS device's date being set to January 1st, 1970, perform a phone reboot - and chances are it will be permanently bricked. It is said that Error 53 affects just about any iOS device that runs on a 64-bit processor with iOS 8 or newer, and this will comprise of iPhones, iPads, and iPod touch models. So far, there does not seem to be a permanent fix, although a Twitter user claimed that the iOS device was revived after 5 hours, while another cited that a change in SIM card would bring an end to this bug.
