Do not set the date on your iPhone to January 1, 1970, unless you want a phone you can't use anymore.

There's an ad-like meme going around, designed to look like it's from Apple, telling people that if they set the date on their iPhone to 1/1/1970 and then power off/power back on the iPhone, then it will present with an Easter Egg...a theme that mimics the classic Macintosh look.

People who are claiming to be in the know say that this is a prank, like charging your phone by putting it in the microwave or waterproofing it. This prank will "brick" your iPhone. (Make it unusable).

As cool as this might look, it’s a hoax, and a particularly nasty one at that. Resetting your phone’s date that far back will so thoroughly confuse your phone or tablet’s operating system that you’ll either need to take it to the Apple store for a replacement, or just buy a whole new phone or tablet.

The date bug affects iPhones, iPads and iPod touches with 64-bit processors running iOS 8 or iOS 9. Apple says it’s looking into the bug. Users can protect themselves with a series of tweaks, such as manually setting their time and date, not enabling automatic time changes, and not turning off their iPhone or iPads.

Here's a screenshot of the meme:

 

Upgrading to iOS 8? Avoid the iCloud Drive bugs.

The new iPhone 6 is here! As usual, with a new iPhone comes a new operating system release. For those of you downloading iOS 8, you may want to avoid using iCloud Drive. After you download iOS 8 and you begin the setup process, at some point you're going to be given the option of signing into iCloud Drive. We recommend you do not do it, as it's not meant to work properly until Apple releases the new Mac operating system.

If you use iCloud to sync documents and other things between your phone and your computer (as most people do) you will lose that sync ability if you activate iCloud Drive today. You can wait on it until October 21st - the date Mac's new operating system, Yosemite, is released. It is important to know that iCloud Drive, once activated, can't be reversed - you can't turn it off and go back.

Over all, iOS 8 is without question the most comprehensive, detailed upgrade that Apple has ever offered to its iPhone / iPad software. You are probably going to need to find somebody that can give you a tutorial on this. There are things throughout this operating system that, if you just wait to discover them, could take you six months to go through them all or find them all.

3 things to consider before you install iOS 8 on your iPhone.

Apple's latest mobile operating system, iOS 8, is live and available for download & installation now. All you have to do is go to Settings > General > Software Update to make it happen. But wait!

1) Make sure you back up your phone before updating.
This is really important and something most people ignore. Then you start crying when the install freezes and suddenly you lost all of the pictures of your cat with that cute little vest on. Forever. You'll never see those pictures of Mr. Tinkle again. You don't know how your phone is going to act during the installation and you don't know what kind of hidden glitches may be in the new operating system. It's likely ok, but it's better to be safe than sorry. Always back up your phone!

2) Don't put iOS 8 on your iPhone 4 / 4S.
The update is available for you, but don't do it. (Frankly, you shouldn't have installed iOS 7 either). The older phone just doesn't fill the hardware requirements of the new OS and the performance suffers significantly because of that.
If you like your 4S, keep it. But don't expect any changes coming your way. It will be just like it is today - forever

3) Realize that install of iOS 8 needs 5.8GB of space.
Delete whatever music, videos, pictures, or applications you need to in order to make the switch.

If you're planning on buying the iPhone 6 tomorrow, you should keep this in mind as you make your selection of which version to purchase. Those of you going the cheaper route and getting the 16GB model are only going to have a little over 10GB of space available to play around with, which isn't a whole lot when all your photos, videos, and music are restored.