iPhone: The Missing Manual, 3rd Edition

Reset: Six Degrees of Desperation

The iPhone runs actual programs, and as actual programs do, they actually crash. (Certain App Store programs come to mind.) Sometimes, the program you're working in simply vanishes and you find yourself back at the Home screen. Just reopen the program and get on with your life.

If the program you're in just doesn't seem to be working right—it's frozen or acting weird, for example—then one of these six resetting techniques usually clears things right up.

Note

Proceed down this list in order! Start with the easy ones.

• Force-quit the program. On an iPhone, you're never aware that you're launching and exiting programs. They're always just there, like TV channels, when you switch to them. But if a program locks up or acts glitchy, you can force it to quit.

  To do that, hold down the Sleep switch until the "slide to power off" message appears. Then hold down the Home button until the frozen program quits. The next time you open the troublesome program from the Home screen, it should be back in business.

  Note

  These steps have changed since the pre-iPhone-3.0 era.

• Turn the phone off and on again. If it seems something more serious has gone wrong, hold down the Sleep switch for a few seconds. When the screen says, "slide to power off," confirm by swiping. The iPhone shuts off completely.

  Turn it back on by pressing the Sleep switch for a second or two.

• Force-restart the phone. If you haven't been able to force-quit the program, and you can't shut the phone off either, ...