The touchscreen on your iPhone is typically the only interface, so if it isn’t functional, neither is your phone. It can be annoying when a touchscreen is unresponsive, either because it doesn’t respond to your taps or because it responds erratically and infrequently. Fortunately, you can try a few easy fixes before taking your device to an Apple Store.
From a simple restart to the drastic measure of factory resetting your iPhone, we’ll go over some ways to fix an unresponsive iPhone touchscreen. Before contacting Apple for assistance, you can at least be sure that you have tried everything possible if none of these solutions work.
The touchscreen on your iPhone is typically the only interface, so if it isn’t functional, neither is your phone. It can be annoying when a touchscreen is unresponsive, either because it doesn’t respond to your taps or because it responds erratically and infrequently. Fortunately, you can attempt a few easy repairs before taking your device to an Apple Store.
From a simple restart to the drastic measure of factory resetting your iPhone, we’ll go over some ways to solve an unresponsive iPhone touchscreen. Before contacting Apple for assistance, you should be sure you have tried everything possible if none of these solutions work.
Your iPhone shares many internal components with a Mac or Windows PC, and you may have already experienced issues with those devices that could be resolved with a quick reboot. With an iPhone, the same is occasionally accurate. The methods to achieve this may vary depending on whether your iPhone has a home button on the front or Face ID and only side buttons.
Using Face ID, how do you restart your iPhone?
If your iPhone, such as an iPhone 14 or iPhone 14 Pro, has Face ID:
- When the Slide to power off control appears, press and hold the right-side button while holding one of the volume buttons.
- From left to right, slide the slider.
- To shut down entirely, give your device at least 30 seconds.
- Till you see the Apple logo, press and hold the button on the right side of your iPhone.
- After a brief booting period, your device will return to the lock screen.
- To unlock your device, swipe up and input your passcode.
How to use the home button to restart an iPhone
Even though most of Apple’s current iPhone models have edge-to-edge displays and Face ID, the entry-level iPhone SE (2022) retains the timeless style of the iPhone 8 and preceding versions. An iPhone with a home button has a somewhat different restart procedure:
To activate the Slide to power off control, press and hold the right-side button. That button will be on the top rather than the side if you’re using an iPhone SE from the first generation (2016), an iPhone 5s, or an earlier device.
- From left to right, slide the slider.
- To shut down entirely, give your device at least 30 seconds.
- Till you see the Apple logo, press and hold the button on the right side of your iPhone.
- After a brief booting period, your device will return to the lock screen.
Clean your screen and check your screen protector.
Nowadays, screen protectors are typically very thin and made to fit nicely with smartphones. They might sporadically impact how responsive your iPhone’s touchscreen is. As a result, if you’re using a screen protector, you should be sure that it has been put correctly on the touchscreen of your iPhone. If it still hasn’t, try taking it off and putting it back on or, if you have one, use a different protector.
It’s a good idea to test removing your screen protector, even if it has been correctly installed, to ensure it isn’t getting in the way. You might think about forgoing a screen protector entirely or purchasing a thinner one from a trustworthy company if your iPhone’s touchscreen starts functioning properly after removing your screen protector.
Unplug the Lightning-related devices
Nowadays, it’s not very common, but we have seen instances where linked accessories interfere in some way with touchscreen operations. Therefore, try unplugging any wired accessories you may be using, even if it’s just a charger, to see if your touchscreen starts operating normally. Restart your iPhone after unplugging the addition to ensure you’ve covered all the bases.
iPhone software update
The next thing to do is update your iPhone to the most recent version of iOS if the above methods have yet to make the touchscreen on your iPhone more responsive. The fastest and most straightforward way to accomplish this is to tap General > Software Update if you can use your iPhone to access the Settings app. You must connect to a Mac or Windows PC running iTunes otherwise.
Step 1: Connect your gadget to your computer.
Step 2:Â Open Finder using macOS Catalina 10.15 or a later version. Launch iTunes using Windows or macOS Mojave 10.14 (or before). Step 3: If you can unlock your iPhone to the home screen and you’ve previously linked your iPhone to this computer, it should show up in the sidebar in Finder or iTunes. This may be doable with Face ID or Touch ID, even if your touchscreen isn’t responding. To download and install the most recent iOS update, click the Update button in Finder or iTunes and select your iPhone from the sidebar.
Step 4:Â If this is the first time you’ve used your iPhone with this computer, you’ll get a prompt asking you to “Trust” it. You’ll need to tap on that prompt to confirm. If your touchscreen is sufficiently responsive, you can tap on that to confirm before moving on to the next step to update your iPhone.
However, if your touchscreen is completely unresponsive, you won’t be able to accept the trust question, and your Mac or Windows PC won’t normally interact with your iPhone. Instead, you must first enter “Recovery” mode on your iPhone. This is how to accomplish it:
- Verify that your iPhone is plugged into your PC.
- Make sure iTunes runs using Windows or macOS 10.14 or earlier.
- Use the instructions above that apply to your particular model to force restart your iPhone.
- After a force restart, your iPhone should display a recovery mode screen rather than the Apple logo.
- Your computer should display a window informing you that an iPhone in recovery mode has been found.
- To begin downloading and installing the most recent iOS version, choose Update from that window.
iPhone’s factory reset
The last thing you can do is restore your iPhone to factory settings if updating your iPhone doesn’t fix any software-related problems causing your iPhone’s touchscreen to freeze.
After doing this, your iPhone will be restored to its factory settings and will have everything deleted. You’ll lose everything on your iPhone if you already have a backup or can create a new one, but it’s the only way to establish that the issue you’re having is hardware rather than software.
Follow the three steps indicated in the section above to return your iPhone to factory settings, but this time pick Restore rather than Update when prompted.
After the restore procedure on your iPhone is complete, proceed with the initial setup without restoring your data from a backup. You can check if the touchscreen is functioning correctly by configuring your smartphone to look like a brand-new iPhone. As soon as you’re happy, you can factor in resetting it once more and choose to restore your backup during the setup process.
Contact Apple Support
It could be better to speak with Apple Support instead of resetting your iPhone, especially if you don’t have a backup. Since Apple might be able to resolve the problem — which could be hardware-related — without erasing your iPhone, this is probably a safer last resort than factory resetting your iPhone.
It’s important to remember that there is no assurance that this will be the case. As Apple takes your privacy and security very seriously, even its technicians and engineers cannot override the trusted computer prompt to access your data. If your iPhone has a serious hardware issue, Apple may replace it with a replacement unit, and it will be up to you to restore your data to the new iPhone.
