It is pretty common for parents nowadays to give their kids an iPad to help distract them and make them keep quiet. Evan Osnos, a journalist from Washington DC, did the same and ended up being locked out of his iPad for 47 years.
Osnos’s 3-year-old kid repeatedly kept entering the wrong passcode on the iPad which eventually led to it being disabled and locked for 47 years or 25 million+ minutes. This happens if one repeatedly enters the wrong passcode. Waiting for the passcode timer to reset is definitely not an option here because by the time that happens, Osnos’ kid will end up having kids of his own.
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
Thankfully, there is an easy solution to this problem if you ever find yourself stuck in the same situation. Apple even has a dedicated support page about this. All you need to do is connect your iPad to iTunes on your PC and then proceed to restore it to the latest version of iOS. There’s a catch here though, the iPad/iPhone will be completely erased and so will all your data. But I guess for someone in Osnos’ situation, this is still a better situation than waiting for 47 years to activate his iPad again.
Moral of the story? Don’t give a locked iPad to your kid. They will end up locking you out of it as well.
We Want to Hear From You
Have you ever been locked out from your iPhone or iPad for a ridiculous amount of time? If so, what did you do? And how did you get into such a situation in the first place? Drop a comment and let us know!