The iPhone’s home screen button has a tough job. We rely on it to navigate the entire iPhone, so if you find yourself with a broken home screen button, you’re in a spot of bother. At worst, it renders your iPhone almost unusable, at best it becomes a massive headache.
iPhone’s are regarded as one of the more durable smartphones on the market, largely because of their lack of outwardly breakable components. With just five buttons on the entire device, there are not too many buttons that you can break. The downside of such a simple piece of hardware is that certain components take a beating, especially considering the average 18-24 month-long contract. Out of the five buttons on the iPhone, the home button is the only one that you really can’t ‘do without’ on an iPhone. Therefore, if it breaks, it is time to act.
Fear not though, as there are a number of things that you can do to fix a broken home button. Below are some helpful tips to get your phone back up and running.
Tip One: Re-calibrate your home button
This is the simplest tip, and the best starting place.
- Open up any app on your phone
- Activate the Power Off screen by holding down the button on the top of your phone until the power off shows
- Hold down your home button for 5-10 seconds
Now resume using your iPhone to test if this has fixed the problem?
Tip 2: Realign your home button
Unfortunately, if tip one did not fix this problem for you, it means that you do not have a software problem. In other words, the problem lies in your phones actual hardware. The below technique is a home page realignment technique, which actually resets the home button by using your official Apple charger (we say official, because its important not to use any unofficial iPhone chargers after the recent electric shocks). Follow the below three steps to try out this technique:
- Plug your iPhone charger into your iPhone
- Lightly push the charger against the backside of the home button
- Press the home button
Tip three: clean the home button
Sometimes, the simplest fixes can be the most effective. Often with iPhone’s, they can gather some dirt around the home button. If you slide your finger over the button, it can push small pieces of grime and dust behind the button, which can block off the electronic receptors. The below steps are the best way to tackle cleaning sensitive equipment, like the home button.
- Use 99.9% isopropyl alcohol. Do NOT use any product which contains any water – it will break the phone.
- Apply some drops on and around the edge of the home button
- Leave for 10 minutes – the alcohol will do the cleaning, so no need to rub around the button and risk breaking it further.
Hopefully one of these tips has got the problem fixed for you. If not, let us know in the comments below and we will come back with some additional thoughts.
If this worked for you, which tip did the business? Share your feedback in the comments below