How To Calibrate The Home Button Of Your iOS Device

Sometimes it is the simple things that give us so much joy in our day. We came across this great tutorial over at Snapguide, that shows you how to calibrate the Home button on your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad. Occasionally you may notice that your Home button isn’t quite responding the way it should. You can’t get to the home screen right away, the app switcher won’t reveal quick enough, or Siri is slow when being invoked. In some cases, this can be a hardware issue, but you should try this tutorial. It actually worked for me.

I have my iPod Touch 4G jailbroken, so when the system UI slows down a bit, I just blame it on something I have installed from Cydia. After performing this calibration, I have noticed my Home button is more responsive. There are three simple steps:

1. Open any of the stock apps on your iDevice, like Weather, Maps, or Calender.

2. Press and hold the power button on top, until you see the power off slider appear.

3. Then press and hold the Home button until the power off slider goes away.

That’s all there is to it. If it worked for your device, you should now notice a much more responsive Home button. Let us know if this tip worked for you, in the comments below.

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Weebsurfer
Weebsurfer
13 years ago

This tip works for my 4S just as well as its worked over the years with my 4 and my 3G. An oldy but a goody.

fredf
fredf
Reply to  Weebsurfer
13 years ago

Worked on my 3Gs. thanks

Brad
13 years ago

Talk about timing.  I -just- started having a bunch of trouble with my home button yesterday.  Gave this a shot and now it works perfectly; maybe even better than before…

roadcarver
roadcarver
13 years ago

Well that worked!  I was wondering why when I double tap the home button sometimes it just goes to the search page. 

roadcarver
roadcarver
Reply to  roadcarver
13 years ago

Oh and my device is a iPhone 4.

az
az
13 years ago

I am very skeptical about this. The home button is just a simple on/off button, it’s not a sensor or an analog thing. Why would it need calibration? It either works or not. Am I missing something?

Weebsurfer
Weebsurfer
Reply to  az
13 years ago

It’s never made sense but it usually works. :).

@elgordo99
@elgordo99
13 years ago

Wow! This really worked for my iPhone 4!

I had noticed the button getting sluggish over the last few months, then I tried this and it’s good as new!

I had gotten used to almost pressing through the phone. I’m sure it appreciates the calibration.

Thanks for the tip!

Hosein
Hosein
13 years ago

had no effect on my iPhone 4; still as sluggish as before

Wingnutdan
Wingnutdan
13 years ago

BIG thanks! Worked on my iPhone 4.  Every time I would push the home botton from sleep mode the iPod features would come up… it was slowly driving me crazy.

Wuju007
Wuju007
13 years ago

begin to notice my home button is not so responsive too. Did the calibration above and seems more responsive now. Thanks. My iphone is the 4S

DarkLordMelkor
DarkLordMelkor
13 years ago

OMG, this totally worked for my iPhone 4. A few months after getting my phone, the Home button only worked when pressed on the left side only. If pressed in the middle, or to the right, it would not register. I wanted to go to an Apple Store to exchange it, but kept putting it off until my warranty expired. Now, it’s working like new! Thank you so much for this article.

Mirzank
Mirzank
13 years ago

Im generally very skeptical about these things, even though comments might be positive. After all how can thins force quit method work to fix a hime button that seems to obviously be havinf a mechanical problem.

Thing is it works though. So yeah i know this isnt some magical fix for a mechanxal issue, but it seems to be a software issue (really have no idea why though) an this fixes it. My iphone 4 home button slowly started responding less and less to the point that double click would work so rarely i stopped using it for that, and going to home screen was an exercise is pressing the button at a certain angle

Mirzank
Mirzank
Reply to  Mirzank
13 years ago

Well i finally got sick of it after about 4 months and an expired warranty and i was looking into eiter jailbreking my phone to install a cydia app to use as a home button or to order a replacement button off ebay. Well the enay method was about 40 steps on ifixit but i stumbled across this method just 4 days ago and it miraculously fixed the button where it is now working flawlessly. Ice tried restoring setting up as new resetting network settings rebooting etc and mothjng worked until this.

So why the long story?? Its obviously been debunked but i want someobe to explain why this works for so manu people. If it was a a software issue would apple have fixed it since ive been having this problem all the way sibce ios 4 till the recent 5.1.1

Jd2157
Jd2157
13 years ago

I was skeptical too but when I saw this article it gave me hope that I wouldn’t require a hardware replacement for my iPhone 4. It’s been a great phone for the most part but the Home button has been driving me nuts by not responding to double-clicks properly… sending me into Search rather than bring up the multitasking bar.

Tried this fix and the Home button seems fine now… there’s no arguing with success I guess.

roadcarver
roadcarver
13 years ago

It doesn’t seem to be force quitting the app since when you do this, the app that you launched ie. weather app to do this trick is still shown in the taskswitcher.

Suikodan
Suikodan
13 years ago

Wow! I thought that my Home button was getting defective as it  was hard for it to respond correctly. I did this and WHAM, it’s instant.

Thanks 🙂

JBM Hack
JBM Hack
13 years ago

worked for me on my iPhone 4. Sluggish / unresponsive home button before. Not any more! Thanks!

Dave
Dave
13 years ago

Just because one guy says its bunk, why take his word a gospel?
I was having problems on my 4 thought I might need button replaced,
Now works great

Gary
Reply to  Dave
13 years ago

+1

DarkLordMelkor
DarkLordMelkor
13 years ago

I should add that this worked for my iPhone 4 without opening one of the stock apps (step 1). I did it from the Home Screen, and it fixed my Home button problems.

dustinandrew
13 years ago

wooow! this worked, thanks 😀

Fwimmer
Fwimmer
13 years ago

Awesome. Totally fixed the unresponsive home button on my iPhone 4. Huge thanks!

Bobby
Bobby
13 years ago

Hasn’t worked for me, but my iPhone is really bollocksed. The only thing that works for me is to plug it into a charging point. Absolutely no rhyme or reason to it stopping working, but plugging it in fixes it. If anyone has a hypothesis- let me know.
Cheers

Roberto
Roberto
13 years ago

I did the calibration thing several times. On other sites they suggest to push home button AS SOON as the power off slide comes up. I did it and the home button now works flawlessly.
Before I was using Assistive Touch cause my home button was almost dead. Now it works on 99% of cases. Myth or not if it works I’m fine with that. We could even call it a MIRACLE for what I’m concerned.

Tengo Arusia
13 years ago

fuuuck it works!!! 😀 cant belive

dianne
dianne
12 years ago

didnt work for me :(( what to do?

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