Chinese mom 'locked out' of phone for incredible 47 years

How long can your phone be locked? A Chinese mother recently found out that she may have to wait for a daunting 47 years to use her iPhone again.

According to media reports, earlier this year, Ms Lu from Shanghai was told she had to wait an incredible 25,114,980 minutes to try her password again in order to activate her phone. That's almost 47.78 years.

It was disabled because her two-year-old son played with her phone and entered wrong pins multiple times.

"I have many important files, photos and contacts in the phone," the worried Lu said. "I don't want to reboot it. Am I supposed to wait for some 40 years? I will be too old to talk then."

Technician Wei Chunlong said that such a phenomenon occurs when a password is entered wrongly for too many times, in order to protect users' privacy and data.

"The phone will be disabled for one minute the first time, then for five minutes and half an hour. After that, disabled time will be random. Even 80 years is possible," Wei said.

"There is no way to solve it unless she resets the system. All the files cannot be transferred either."

But Wei also noted that the phone will be disabled automatically without asking users to wait for 40 years in the iOS 10.1 system.

On China's top microblogging site Weibo, some people expressed understanding of Apple's rule to protect users' data in case the phone is stolen, while others gave advice about how the phone could be unlocked by logging in iTunes.