Reboot, Reset, Recover
No matter how far we’ve come in terms of smartphone technology, one thing hasn’t changed much. Your iPhone is still not immune to occasional freezes and slowdowns. Fortunately, there are tried and tested methods to help you out. These methods increase in levels of severity as you go from a forced reboot to a hard reset, and finally to a recovery where you replace your phone’s firmware.
You might be struggling with performance on your iPhone or you could be thinking of selling it or passing it on, and need to erase your sensitive data from the device. We’ll show you how to perform each of the above processes — Reboot, Reset, and Recovery — in detail, for your iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus. With the earlier Home button getting replaced by a pressure-sensitive button on the newer iPhone 7 and & 7 Plus, the methods below are up-to-date and will get your iPhone back to its feet in no time.
Start with a Reboot or a Forced Reboot
When experiencing freezes or slowdowns on your iPhone 7 or 7 Plus, the first method you should try is a normal reboot. This simply means restarting your iPhone with the power button – the usual method. Follow the simple steps below:
- Press and hold the power button until you see the slide to power off
- Slide it to turn off your phone
- Press the power button again and hold it until you see the Apple logo appear. Your phone will now start automatically
A simple reboot can fix issues like apps draining the battery in the background or your iPhone running out of RAM due to multiple apps running simultaneously.
How to Perform a Forced Reboot/Soft Reset
If the usual method doesn’t work due to the iPhone 7 becoming completely unresponsive, you need to perform a soft reset – which is nothing but a forced reboot of your iPhone.
Apple recently replaced the physical Home button on the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus with a capacitive solid-state button that senses the pressure you apply on it. Due to this, the earlier steps of using the home button to perform a forced reboot have changed. You now need to follow the steps shown below to perform a forced reboot or soft reset on your iPhone 7/7 Plus:
- Press and hold the sleep/wake button and the Volume down buttons together
- Keep holding them until the Apple logo appears on screen
You may see the volume level indicator on the screen during this process. That’s perfectly normal, as the volume down button is part of the soft reset process. Once the Apple logo appears on screen, your iPhone will reboot normally, and you should have gotten rid of the slowdown issues once the phone boots up.
Perform a Hard Reset of Your iPhone 7/7 Plus
A hard reset is a step further on the spectrum — a more severe way of restoring your iPhone back to its former glory. Your iPhone 7/7 Plus might be suffering from more than just an occasional slowdown. Over time, your phone’s memory gets filled up and its performance is likely to drop by a few notches.
A hard reset is meant to give your phone a new life by erasing all the data on it and restoring it back to ‘factory’ settings. A hard reset is also the way to go if you’re planning on selling or giving away your iPhone.
Remember that a hard reset or factory reset will completely erase your iPhone’s storage. Hence, it’s important to take a backup of your iPhone 7/7 Plus before proceeding, in case you’re doing this due to a performance issue.
- Head over to Settings
- Scroll down and tap General
- Scroll down again and tap Reset
- Tap on Erase All Content and Settings
- Select Erase iPhone. Tap on Erase iPhone again to confirm.
- Enter your Apple ID to confirm it’s really you.
- Tap on Erase
After this, you will see the Apple logo on screen along with a progress bar. Once it completes, your iPhone 7 or 7 Plus will be completely erased with factory settings restored. You will be greeted with the initial setup screen once the phone boots up. You’re all set up to enjoy your new-like iPhone or sell it, as you prefer.
Restore OS with Recovery mode on Your iPhone 7/7 Plus
When all else fails, and your phone is still plagued by freezes and slowdowns, or worse – stopped working due to an interrupted software update, the Recovery mode is a last-resort method to restore your iPhone’s OS and get it working again.
Recovery mode lets you update or downgrade your iPhone’s firmware or restore it to a working backup. It not only removes all your data but completely restores its firmware i.e. the OS on your phone. Whatever issues you were experiencing before the recovery process, they’re sure to be eliminated after it.
You’ll need to use iTunes on your Mac or PC for this method. Use the below steps to enter the recovery mode and restore your iPhone’s OS:
- If your iPhone 7/7 Plus is turned on and functioning, turn it off through the usual process. Hold down the power button and then slide to turn it off.
- Launch iTunes on your computer and connect it to your iPhone. Use the power and volume down buttons to power it on. Proceed to Step 4.
- In case your iPhone is not even booting up, press and hold the sleep/wake and volume down buttons together until the phone restarts. In this case, make sure the phone is plugged into your computer with iTunes running before restarting it.
- Once you restart your iPhone after connecting it to the computer, keep holding the power and volume down buttons until you see the recovery screen appear or the Connect to iTunes message on the phone’s screen.
- Your computer should indicate that it has discovered an iPhone and should offer Update or Restore options
- Select Update to try to fix the problem by updating the OS without erasing your data.
- In case Update doesn’t work, enter the recovery mode again by following the above steps and try the Restore This will replace the OS with an older backup or a fresh copy of the OS and erase all your data.
Once the Update or Restore process is complete, your iPhone 7/7 Plus will automatically exit the Recovery mode and restart normally.
