As we sail past the iPhone 4′s first birthday, now would be a good time to take in to account how the hardware has held up over the year. One major problem I have noticed with my iPhone 4 is that the home button no longer works as it used to. Sometimes it registers when I press it and sometimes it just refuses. Sometimes it even registers a single click as a double. When the iPhone essentially only has one button, it sure is a pain when it doesn’t work!
The Problem
The unresponsive iPhone home button has been around for a while and many still argue over whether it is a hardware or software problem. Take a look at the problem in action, the user of this iPhone 4 seems to be experiencing the same problem as quite a number of others around the globe. What do you think? Is this a hardware or software problem?
The Solution?
Some users have had some luck by following these instructions from ifixit. However, they aren’t for the faint hearted and require removing every single part from within your iPhone to get to the home button at the front. It is probably worth siding with those that think this is a software problem first, they suggest restoring your iPhone from a back-up and if that doesn’t work, a clean restore might be in order.
If you go down the software repair route and you still have an iPhone which just can’t go home, it is probably worth taking a look at the hardware. Although, not necessarily yourself! Some suggest blowing compressed air under the button to dislodge anything which may be interfering with the home button’s connection. There is a chance however that using compressed air could damage other, delicate internal iPhone parts so taking this approach should be done at your own risk!
Basically there is no hard and fast solution to this problem, you might have some luck by performing a clean restore, you may even feel confident enough to take your phone to pieces and fix it yourself. The only guaranteed solution at the moment is to take your phone back to Apple for repair. If you bought your iPhone on launch day, then you probably aren’t under warranty any longer, but if you bought it less than a year ago, there is still hope!
Just take a look at the Apple support forums and you can see the number of iPhone users suffering from this problem.
If anyone has had any luck with their iPhone’s home button after it has become unresponsive, please let us know in the comments!
