iPhone: The Missing Manual, 2nd Edition

Reset: Six Degrees of Desperation

The iPhone runs actual programs, and as actual programs do, they actually crash. (That's especially true of programs from the App Store.) Sometimes, the program you're working in simply vanishes and you find yourself back at the Home screen. (That can happen when, for example, Safari encounters some plug-in or data type on a Web page that it doesn't know how to handle.) 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—one of the following 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. Hold down the Home key for 6 seconds.

  The next time you open the troublesome program from the Home screen, it should be back in business.

• Turn the phone off and on again. If it seems something more serious has gone wrong, hold down the Sleep/Wake 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/Wake 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 off the phone either, you ...