Evan Osnos is a staff writer for The New Yorker who, like many other fathers out there, probably just wanted a few minutes of peace and quiet. So, like many other fathers out there, he decided to let his three-year-old son play on the family iPad for a few minutes. Little did he know when he handed over the iPad that he would end up getting locked out of it for 25 million minutes. Naturally, Osnos took to Twitter to find a solution and the internet and yes, it's as funny as you think it is.

Apparently, you just never know when your toddler is going to press "9999" a ton of times and lock you out of your device for eternity. Osnos learned that the hard way when he returned to his toddler to find that he'd been locked out of his iPad for 25,536,442 minutes. That roughly translates to about 47 years.


Osnos had no hope but to turn to his Twitter following and plead for help. In his tweet, Osnos wrote "Uh, this looks fake but, alas, it's our iPad today after 3-year-old tried (repeatedly) to unlock. Ideas?"

The internet hit back with some pretty funny suggestions. One person advised Osnos to just wait it out and another suggested rebooting the 3-year-old instead. Another follower even went so far as to suggest time travel as the safest option.



There's a ton of reasons why people get locked out of their device and we can only imagine they're equally frustrating. Maybe you're like Osnos and have a toddler who likes to use the iPad as a drumset. Maybe you gave the device to an elderly grandparent who can't work technology to save their lives.

Or maybe you have the unfortunate luck of dating someone with trust issues who wants to get into your text history. Whatever the reason may be, don't worry. There is a solution.

Luckily for Osnos, Twitter actually did come to the rescue. People were quick to reply with actual fixes to the problem. If you ever encounter the situation, all you have to do is plug your device into your computer and a pop-up should ask you if you want to "restore" the device. After iTunes downloads the software again, you can import your saved data.

You also have the option to get your device into DFU (data firmware update) mode. Each device is a little different but it should restore the device to its previous state.

If there's anything we've learned from Osnos' unfortunate luck, it's that all parents should back up their devices ASAP. Since all of Apple's gadgets are now secured with an auto-delete data setting that you can't turn off, it's definitely worth making the time.

The only thing you might not recover are all those accidental selfies your kid probably took while trying to unlock the device. But don't worry, we're sure there are a lot more where those came from.