Why can’t I set my iPhone clock Past 2038 or before 2001 if I can on Mac??

This may be related to the Unix time problem.

HowStuffWorks – What is the Year 2038 problem?

The standard Unix time library represents time using a 32-bit signed integer that measures the number of seconds since January 1, 1970 at 12:00:00 a.m. A signed integer would roll over from a positive value to a negative (invalid) value at a point corresponding to some time on January 19, 2038.

By the way, there are no iPods, iPhones, or iPads that came out as early as December 31, 2000 at 7:00:00 PM. So that limitation, assuming it exists, never would have prevented someone from setting the clock correctly.

Note that it is unlikely that any iPhone that you buy in 2024 would still be in use in 2038.

If we look backwards 14 years, instead of forwards, we see that the iPhones that were on sale in 2010 were the 3G, 3GS, and 4 (GSM). All of those phones had

• 32-bit processors (abandoned for 64-bit ones long ago)
• Less than 1 GB of RAM (128 MB to 512 MB – versus at least 3 GB on all phones capable of running iOS 18)
• No ability to connect to 4G or 5G cellular networks
• 30-pin dock connectors (not even Lightning, let alone USB-C)

making them quite obsolete now. I don't know if the changes between now and 2038 will be quite as dramatic, but I would expect 14 more years of technical improvements to make a 2024 phone look obsolete next to a 2038 one.

As far as getting future iPhones ready to handle dates past 2038, Apple has plenty of time left in which to do it.