iPhone or iPad won't turn on

It can be frustrating when your iPhone or iPad just won’t work. We rely on this technology every day and when it doesn’t work or freezes it can be super inconvenient. Instead of throwing your phone at the nearest wall (this definitely won’t help, believe us, we’ve been there) try these tips to fix an unresponsive iPad or iPhone.

Charge it up

Your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch will not turn on if the battery is completely drained. Plug your device into a wall charger and let it charge for a good while, we recommend at least fifteen minutes. Give it some time to charge and it should turn itself back on. This is the fix for your device if the battery was drained.

If this doesn’t work we recommend first trying another charger. A broken charger or charging cable will prevent the device from charging. Try another charger and cable if you have one available.

We also suggest that you make sure that the charging cord is sitting snug in the bottom of the unit. It is quite common for lint or other debris to obstruct the charging connection. You can use a toothpick to clean out the charging port if necessary. Do not use something metal like a paperclip as this can damage and fry the charging port.

After all this if your device is still unresponsive, try performing a hard reset.

Perform a Hard Reset

A hard reset will essentially forcibly reboot your iPhone or iPad which is helpful when it’s completely frozen and not responding to anything.

To perform a hard reset on a newer phone without a Home button like the iPhone 8, iPhone X, iPhone XS, iPhone XR, and new iPad Pro, you have to quickly press and release the Volume UP button, quickly press and release the Volume Down button, and then press and hold the Side button. Hold the Side button until your device reboots. You should see the Apple logo appear on the screen as it’s booting up, and then you can release the Side button. This will take about ten seconds to complete.

If you’ve waited longer than ten seconds without any luck you need to try again. Don’t pause for too long between each press.

To perform a hard reset on an older iphone or one with a Home Button, press and hold both the Power and Home buttons and hold them down for between ten and twenty seconds. You should see the Apple logo when the device begins to boot back up normally.

Always make sure that you have charged the device first before attempting any hard reset.

Restore the iOS with iTunes

If when you power your device on you see an error screen with a picture of a USB cable and the iTunes logo you need to restore the device to its original settings. This error comes up when the iOS software on your device is damaged or corrupted. You’ll need to connect the device to a computer that is installed with and running iTunes (you’ll need a USB cable for the connection as well). Once the device is plugged in iTunes should inform you that there is a problem with your device and prompt you to restore it. This will download the latest iOS software from Apple and install it onto your device.

Please note, the restore process will wipe the data from your iPhone or iPad but we’re assuming that information is already inaccessible if your device won’t boot up. You can always recover your data from an iCloud Backup later.


If none of these tips worked, your device likely has a hardware problem. We recommend checking the warranty on the device to see if it can be returned and fixed for you. If it is no longer under warranty we highly suggest you take it to a local repair shop who may be able to help! Try these tips before launching your iPhone or iPad across the room out of frustration - it might feel good at the time but then we’ve got a whole other set of problems. 

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