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Posted on December 3rd, 2012 by Barry Collins
How to “fix” an unresponsive home button on an iPad/iPhone
Last week, my iPad 2’s home button – the physical button in the bottom bezel – started behaving erratically. It would take two or more presses to return me to the home screen, or occasionally register double-clicks when I only tapped once.
So I did what any member of modern society does: I moaned about it on Twitter. Before you could say “trip to the Apple Store”, my old chum and editor of iOS magazine Tap, Chris Phin, shot back “Google ‘recalibrate home button’”.
I did as I was told, and followed the top result detailing a simple procedure to supposedly recalibrate the home button. In a nutshell, you launch “one of the stock apps” (such as Weather or Calendar), hold down the top power button until the “slide to power off” prompt appears, release it and then quickly press and hold the home button down until both the power-off prompt and app disappear.
This solution absolutely reeked of snake oil: how on Earth can a fixed, single-purpose button need recalibration? But, lo and behold, it worked. The button began responding to every click, as good as new. Although, I have to admit that this morning, it’s started to get a little intermittent again.
I have no idea what’s going on here. There are plenty of people on the various websites running the “recalibration” technique that are absolutely convinced it has miraculously fixed their iPad/iPhone; there are plenty of others who claim it’s a myth, that it does nothing more than force the closure of the currently running app.
My instinct says the naysayers are right, but similarly I can’t explain how opening and closing the Calendar app would make the home button more responsive (albeit temporarily). And it’s not an available memory issue, because using the five-finger pinch gesture to return to the home screen works every time (thanks to @projiuk for that tip, which doesn’t work on an iPhone, by the way).
So, over to you. Let me know if this “fix” has worked for you, and if you can work out what the hell’s going on here.
Tags: apple, home button, iPad, iphone
Posted in: Hardware
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30 Responses to “ How to “fix” an unresponsive home button on an iPad/iPhone ”
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December 3rd, 2012 at 11:40 am
Didn’t work.
Jailbreak + activator is a foolproof method to get a phone working, though.
I have single tap up-volume as task switcher, and single tap down-volume as home.
Cheaper than a barrel of snake-oil too…
December 3rd, 2012 at 11:52 am
Ah, yes, I know about this.
Apple products have a built in obsolescence counter – every time you click the home button it counts down by one. When it reaches zero the home button is designed to be occasionally unresponsive to prompt you to upgrade your device.
The “calibration” routine, thanks to a bug in iOS, simply adds to the counter so you have a few more stabs of the home button before it malfunctions again – simply re-run the calibration occasionally to top up your limit.
Hope that helps,
David.
December 3rd, 2012 at 11:58 am
Wow… if that is true (and I don’t think it is April 1st) I can hear the lawyers rubbing their hands together…
December 3rd, 2012 at 12:02 pm
Make sure you install the Homeopathy app as well…
Or alternatively you could drop a few spots of 99.9% isopropyl alcohol around the end of the button, and work it in by pressing the button a few times. That might help dissolve the finger grease that’s crept in down the sides.
December 3rd, 2012 at 12:17 pm
Nope, didn’t work. Had to replace the button.
December 3rd, 2012 at 12:21 pm
@Paul. Of course, you could combine both and save a lot of money. Add a small drop of alcohol to a jug of water, and thanks to its memory, it should work just as well.
Or short the device.
David.
December 3rd, 2012 at 12:21 pm
@DavidArtiss haha, good one! I’m wondering if they also put few lines of code which slow down your iDevice to a crawl when it reaches certain age…
December 3rd, 2012 at 12:29 pm
I had the same problem with my iPhone 4 until I slammed it face down onto the table in frustration. Remarkably the phone stayed intact and the home button issue dissappeared. Still fine 6 months later.
I wouldn’t recomend this as a fix, I’m amazed I didn’t smash my phone but it does indicate a hardware issue to me.
BTW, Anger management lessons are on the Xmas list
December 3rd, 2012 at 12:31 pm
@aa11 No, but Microsoft does that with Windows. The code is called “The Registry”.
December 3rd, 2012 at 12:51 pm
Glad I haven’t got any Apple devices
December 3rd, 2012 at 1:10 pm
This is reply contains extreme speculation based on a germ of knowledge… True part: physical buttons and switches require a “de-bounce” circuit when interfaced with digital HW. The mechanical parts / springs in buttons judder and bounce then you press them. Without de-bounce the signal the chips get when you press can look like lots of short presses. In my electronics lessons, the de-bounce was just a capacitor.
Purest wild speculation: Possibly Apple de-bounce the home key in software, and the software has an adaptive component to adjust to button wear. Perhaps this could require a forced recalibration sometimes?
But mostly, I’d suspect bull.
December 3rd, 2012 at 1:18 pm
This should fix the problem for you… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cY4cXn_GcG4
December 3rd, 2012 at 2:45 pm
“press and hold the home button down” – this is surely the real answer. A switch may be getting tarnished or similar, and holding the button gives it some physical stress that might clean the contacts. Hence it working for a while, before needing to be done again. I’d be looking at that as an explanation, not anything software related.
December 3rd, 2012 at 3:24 pm
I had this issue with my iPod touch 4th gen. I took it back to the reseller and was sent a new one under warranty. The annoying this is that is only happened after a few hours of non use so was a real pain to demonstrate.
December 3rd, 2012 at 3:54 pm
MJ is correct. It’s the firm pressing of the home button that temporarily fixes it.
Holding down the home button when the power off is displayed force closes the current app.
Holding down home and power forces a hard restart of the OS with no power down of the circuitry (sim wont need unlocking).
The button is a simple On/Off button and has no calibration if you look at the hardware inside.
December 3rd, 2012 at 7:21 pm
Woah! just wow! I would never have believed that, it bloody worked!
December 3rd, 2012 at 8:04 pm
It’s an ipad 2, surely that’s obsolete and needs replacing with something new, shiny, white and overpriced
December 4th, 2012 at 8:47 am
The fix didn’t work for me (Ipad 3) but I found an additional fix which did here:
http://thehowto.wikidot.com/ipad-home-button
December 4th, 2012 at 2:43 pm
Never heard anything so ridiculous – calibrating a button(!) But if anyone just said “hold the button down for a while and that’ll sort it out”, who would accept that solution?
December 4th, 2012 at 4:59 pm
WD40 always does it for me.
December 6th, 2012 at 1:38 pm
Didn’t work for me on my iPhone 4, I did manage to get it to close the app as per the video but my home key still needs pressing down with force
December 21st, 2012 at 10:28 am
Worked for me. I’ve been using assistive touch to get back to the home screen for weeks due to an unresponive home button. Tried it 10 times in a row and it’s worked every time.
February 2nd, 2013 at 8:15 am
Months ago my 30 month old iphone4 home button became almost unusable. Using the ‘what have I got to lose’ principle, I sprayed electrical contact cleaner in while holding the button down. No probs since.
February 6th, 2013 at 3:49 am
Thank you for this! After about five tries the home button is working again.
February 12th, 2013 at 2:09 pm
Worked for my iphone 4. Now if I could just find out how to permanently fix the wifi issue…
February 24th, 2013 at 3:11 pm
Saved me a trip! Worked like a charm! Thank you!!!!!
February 27th, 2013 at 2:14 pm
Tried a whole bunch of stuff. Then I wondered maybe there’s some dust or finger oil blocking the button beneath it. So I blow it really hard and suck it really hard (It sounded really gay thanks for thinking it) and voila! good as new!
March 2nd, 2013 at 6:54 am
Unbelievable! This worked for me! Was having trouble with home button being unresponsive and was really afraid it was going bad…but the procedure fixed it! Give it a try, nothing to lose. I also wond does this problem have something to do with a Smart Cover? I have my suspicions.
March 16th, 2013 at 3:54 am
all you need to do is turn off your ipod/iphone, turn it on after 3-5 minutes later and press the button until voice control appears. It worked for me
May 20th, 2013 at 4:30 pm
Thought this was a load of old cobblers, but upgraded ipad and did the button holding tuning thingy and broken Ipad is fixed.
WOW