Q: Is there any way to fix your iPhone 6 after setting the date and time to January 1, 1970?

Hi, try a DFU restore.

Someone solved the problem by removing the sim card, I haven't tried this but you can give a shot.

The last solution is to let the battery discharge but i don't recommend you this.

In any case the best solution is to take an appointment with the Apple Genius Bar, you will surely helped.

Try a reset: hold down the home and power buttons together until you see the phone turn off and the logo reappears. When the logo reappears, let go of the buttons.

I saw something on the internet that said your iPhone 6 would do something cool if the date was changed to January 1, 1970.

There are many things on the internet that can destroy your iPhone.

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/hoaxes/phonecharge.asp

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/sep/26/waterproof-iphone-ad-hoax-tric ked-users-into-destroying-their-handsets

http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/02/11/newly-revealed-date-glitch-may-render- some-ios-devices-unusable

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBUJcD6Ws6s

I'm the first  who recommend to take iPhone to Apple or a professional Repairer.

There's already a post regarding this January 1, 1970

Seems that while some people have experienced mixed results. It appears that most people are having to take their phone to an Apple Store.

I did the same boneheaded thing so I took my Iphone to the apple store and they were able to restore the phone to the original settings

I fixed my kids iPhone 6! First thing to do is put it in reset mode. hold the power and home at the same time for 10 seconds then only hold the home screen. this places the phone in reset mode. I left it on with the black screen and Apple logo. the phone gets very hot, so I laid it in a cold wrap and left it to die. Once the battery was completely dead, I plugged it into a wall charger until full. Then went to turn it on and it works. It starts up as a new phone, with the Hello screen. Good luck!

Did the same thing last night, plugged my iPhone6+ into my Macbook Pro then put it in DFU Mode by holding the Power and Home buttons together until iTunes recognizes it in Recovery Mode, I let it sit after attempting to let it die, when the battery got to red (10% battery) then i got the New Welcome setup screen.

Do you need to connect to computer at all?

The best result is to place the device into DFU mode and restore. See this ASC user provided tip for recovering from this stunt.

I set my iOS device to January 1, 1970...

I FIXED THIS!

I put my phone in DFU (Hold the power and home button for ten seconds, wait three seconds after screen turns black and then let go of power button while at the same time holding power button). Once iTunes recognizes your phone in recovery mode, it will ask you to restore it. Restore your iPhone, and put your phone on something cool (I put mine on a bag of frozen peas), as the the reboot timeout will overheat your phone. I let my phone restore, put the phone on the peas, went outside for about thirty minutes, and came back inside to a "Welcome" screen. If this doesn't help, take it to an Apple Store. I talked to someone at Apple before trying this and they told me they would give me a free iPhone in replacement, as long as I made an appointment at the Genius Bar. I hoped this helped you!

at which point did you unplug it?

Unfortunately, there is no way to fix this problem through resetting. Restoring, DFU mode will not fix this. The only way to fix this is to run your iPhone's battery completely flat. Like, literally FLAT. You would need to let the battery run out, and leave it without charge for a couple of weeks. Otherwise, if you're brave enough, you can disconnect the battery of your iPhone, let it sit out for a couple days, reconnect it, and all should be good.

Computer devices run on values of zeros and ones, also known as a binary. So computers count time in a code of zeros and ones. Softwares contain this data. Setting your time to January 1, 1970 basically tells the iPhone that the time is a value of 0 flat. January 1, 1970 is when time counting moved on to 32-bit, and started counting seconds from 0. Setting your iPhone to that date back then is causing the iPhone to tell itself that the current time is somehow before January 1, 1970, which is a time counting system that is not registered on the iPhone's software. And thus, its causing your iPhone to be stuck in an infinite loop of rebooting. I assume that its doing that to try to figure out the time, which it can't because the iPhone's software doesn't have computer timing data for any time before January 1, 1970.

This is just what I'm assuming is going on. I'm waiting for Apple to release an official statement of the issue.

So anyways, if you drain the battery flat and reconnect it, I'm pretty sure the iPhone will start counting from time "0", which is January 1, 1970, which is a time that is registered in the iPhone's software.

I can confirm that draining the battery until there is no juice in it what so ever is the way to fix this.

Just put the phone on something cool as mentioned above, let it do its boot cycle (should take about 6-8 hours on a full charge) and drain it.
Once its drained, leave the phone for a hour just to let it cool down internally, then place it back on a charge.
The phone will show the charge icon with the red bar (showing its less than 10% charged) and it will take about 20-30 mins to get it to a bootable state.
Once it does, you will be presented with the welcome screen. Just go through that (its like setting up a new phone) and then connect to iTunes and restore it from your last backup.

Here's what I did step by step:-

1. Drain phone's battery all the way.
2. Let phone idle for a hour to cool.
3. Charge phone.
4. At welcome screen - Go through process of setting up as new phone.
5. Restore from last backup.
Done.