Year 2038why is the maximum year 2038

Good question!

First off, I want to let you know that the operating system has nothing to do with the fact that you can't set your date past 2038. For example, my digital camera does not run IOS, and I can't set the date past 2038 on it as well. This rule applies to almost all technologies of today, phones, computers, cameras, etc. You see, most technologies of today use something known as UNIX time. It is essentially a 32-bit number (a pretty big number) that has been counting seconds from January 1st, 1970, to right now. But, this number will eventually run out because it is finite. When this happens, on January 19th, 2038, at 3:14:07pm atomic time, something simular to the Y2K problem will occur. When that time comes, your iphone will not be able to distinguish between January 19th 2038, 3:14:08pm atomic time, and January 1st, 1901.

In laments terms, your phone can't count high enough to get past 2038, and so it thinks any time after that doesn't even exist.

The way that the technological communities have decided to fix this is by upgrading to a 64-bit system, which will last us until around the year 297,000,000,000.

I love how instead of solving the problem, we just postpone it to the point where don't care anymore.

I hope that answered your question, and I know I'm a bit late.

1st, how have you determined the iPhone 5 has a 2038 limit in the operating system? Or is it an app?

While I'm not sure about iOS, I can say that the 32-bit Mac OS X kernels have had 64-bit time values for years (I can directly test a 10.6 system, but I'm sure they were 64-bits before that). So I would be surprised if iOS was using a 32-bit time value. But at this moment I can not confirm

As to where 2038 comes from, it is 2 billion seconds (2,147,483,647 really) since 1970, which is the starting date for Unix time values. And the 2 billion comes from the maximum value a signed 32 bit value can hold (0x7fffffff in hex).

Regardless of what the iPhone 5 has for its maximum operating system date, I would be fairly confident that the iPhone 5s with its 64-bit operating system will be using a signed 64-bit value in time calculations. That should last until the year 292,471,210,647 😁

Fairs fair, you didn't answer my question. How have you determined that the iPhone 5 has a maximum year of 2038.

Is it the iOS operating system? And if so, what version (5, 6, 7)?

Is it an app (calendar, a 3rd party calendar, notifications, ...)?

As to why Apple does anything, they rarely tell us, and since this is a User-to-User forum, non-of us would know the real answer.

But if you tell us your source of information, and the component involved, someone might have a clue, or a rationalization.

Jackbigpid99 wrote:

I have determined that the iphone 5 has a max year of 2038 cuz i have looked on the time and date settings page scrolled all the way and it stopps at 2048 at 12 am

I'm on ios 7 the latest update

And no 3rd party app is used

Your math doesn't add up 😕.

Does it end in 2038 OR 2048 ?

Again, the calendar and other apps all support dates far beyond 2038.

The date held on the iPhone itself may not, but I can see no reason why at this time you would need to set the date on the iPhone that far in advance, or for that matter to any date other than today. I'm sure that by the time we get to 2038, whatever version of iOS is then current will support setting dates to further years, but I'd wager you'll have a different phone by then.

Regards.

I took the iOS 7 calendar app to 2112, and at that point I got tired of flicking the date wheel.

Chance are this is just a specific app limitation (Settings is just an App) where that app does not bother working with 64-bit time values, and is just using 32-bit values.

I'm sure that by the time 2038 comes around, Settings will have been updated.

It's not the app I'm am asking about its the time and date setting in the iphone its self no apps were needed for this

"Settings" Is An App, as in a user mode application. It just happens to come with your iPhone. "Settings" is NOT the iOS 7 operating system.

"Settings" is not proof that iOS only goes to 2038, it only proves that "Settings" is limited to 2038 when manually setting the iOS date. It does not say anything about the iPhone as a whole.

Of course if your original question is "Why does the iPhone 5 iOS 7.1.1 Settings -> General -> Date & Time only go to 2038", then I would say I do not know, and I do not think anyone in this forum will know why Apple did not allow Settings to exceed 2038.

I suppose if you installed the Mac OS X XCode developer package, along with the iOS 7 SDK, then found and studied the date wheel function, you might be able to find out if there is a 32 bit and a 64 bit version or arguments that tell the function what limits should be used. That might give a more authoritive answer, then the guesses we are making here.

Jackbigpid99 wrote:

None of you have answered my question why has the iphone 5 got a max year of 2038

Because that's all that iOS 7 provides at this time. Why does it matter? You won't get to 2039 for 24 years yet.

Yep, he can. And you can be really, really rude. Now, rather than being snarky, how about explaining why it matters that you can't set the date on your iPhone to a date twenty-four years in the future.

Jackbigpid99 wrote:

Why is the maximum year on the iphone 5 set to 2038 even tho it use to be infinite

Because that is the year the aliens will come in large space arks and take us all back to their home planet.

Ummm seriously?? all because tou cant understand what hes saying dosent mean he didnt answer you. let me explain in simpler terms

our minds understand space and time as an abstract thing. Computers though, cannot comprehend time so they use something called universal time which starts in 1970 If you counted each second between the years 1970 and 2038, you would get the 2 billion something something number that he got. the reason is because on older operating systems have something called a thirty-two bit processing capacity which only allows for that number limit to be processed or else the integer below time 1970 (UTC START TIME) to be translated as a negative value and brick your iphone. counting from UTC start time (1970) 2 billion whatever he said number amount of seconds in time value it would come out only to the limit of 2038. No other Function on the iphone would need that large of an integer(number) to process stuff. hopefully iphone will come out of of the past and upgrade to 64-bit(Very hightened processing capabilities in terms of limitation of integers) But whatever you do take my word for it, do not go down to Start of UTC time and restart device. than unprocessable negative integers will come into play and your phone will go past the border of UTC And cause a nearly unfixable problem on iphone. if it happens to you, watch this video

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iNWr52W_7ng

this guy did and he can fix it but apple cant

. Hope it helped 🙂

Why is my 2038 still not fix where in iPhone 7 it seems fixed?

The iPhone 7 has a 64-bit processor and its version of iOS is not using a 32-bit word for the date/time, so it is not limited to the year 2038.

A later version of iOS for a 32-bit iPhone may use a 64-bit word for the date/time to avoid the 2038 problem, but there is no reason for Apple to bother since they haven't made 32-bit iPhones for several years and it is very unlikely that any will still be working in 2038. (Anyway, they will be out of warranty)

The year 2038 problem is an issue for computing and data storage situations in which time values are stored or calculated as a signed 32 bit integer, this number is interpreted as the number of seconds since 00:00:00 1st Jan 1970, (also known as the epoch).

This is absolutely unavoidable.