Earlier this month Apple acknowledged the Error 53 bug that led to bricking of iPhones. Now, the company has officially acknowledged the existence of a recently-exposed date settings bug and has posted a new support document for the same on its website.
The bug which caused iPhones to crash when their date was manually set to 1/1/1970 can also brick other iOS devices like iPad and iPod touch. The 1970 date bug reportedly affects iPhones, iPads and iPod touch devices powered by a 64-bit processor and running iOS 8 or iOS 9. This means devices like iPhone 5s and above, iPad Air and above, iPad mini 2 and sixth generation (2015) iPod touch could be affected by the bug. Unfortunately, Apple has not explained the reason behind the cause of the bug.
Acknowledging the bug, Apple said on its website,
Manually changing the date to May 1970 or earlier can prevent your iOS device from turning on after a restart. An upcoming software update will prevent this issue from affecting iOS devices.
The company also said that users whose iPhones have been bricked by the bug should call Apple Support for further assistance.