By Sarah Kingsbury
Fri, 11/17/2017
* This post is part of iPhone Life's Tip of the Day newsletter. Sign Up. *
Home button or Sleep/Wake button not working properly? (Maybe you had some kind of iPhone misfortune involving water or a drop?) You're probably planning to take your phone in to get fixed; but in the meantime, Assistive Touch is a great work around to this problem. Here’s what you can do as a workaround if your Home button isn’t working on iPhone.
Related: How to Customize Home Button Haptic Feedback with iPhone 7 or 7 Plus
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What to Do If Your Home Button Isn’t Working on iPhone
- First, we need to turn on Assistive Touch. To do this:
- Open the Settings app and select General.
- Tap Accessibility, then Assistive Touch.
- Toggle Assistive Touch on.
- A virtual Home button will now appear on your screen at all times. Press this button and you will bring up a screen like this:
- Tap Siri to use your phone's digital assistant.
- Tap Home to return to the Home Screen.
- Tap Device to bring up a whole new menu of options that allow you to lock the screen orientation, rotate the screen, adjust the volume, mute or unmute your ringer. Tapping More will bring up another menu that let you shake to undo, take a screenshot, bring up the multitasking bar, or use gestures.
- You can also select Notifications or Control Center.
- If you want to change what options you have, you can. In the Assistive Touch menu, you can select Customize Top Level Menu to customize what pops up.
- You can also drag your on-screen Home button to anywhere on the screen, such as in a corner where it’s easily ignored until needed.
