This article was written by Carl Grasso, a former technician and originally debuted in Tech Tails issue #819.
Do you have an older iPod or iPhone that has a sluggish Home button? Does it take a couple taps to get it to register? It may just need to be recalibrated.
Before today, I didn’t even know you can do this; I’d always figured it was just a failing part. But thanks to an article on snapguide.com, I learned that you can recalibrate the button.
In order to do this, you need to open up one of the stock Apple apps (like Calendar, YouTube, Weather, Maps, etc.). Once the app is open, hold down the power button until the red “slide to power off” shows up, then immediately press and hold down the home button until the slider goes away. The app quits and you’re back at the home screen. There’s no guarantee that this will fix the problem, but depending on the issue, it may.
Editor’s Note: I discovered that I had a bad habit of using the Home button to turn on my iPhone instead of using the Sleep/Wake button. As a result, my Home button was very sluggish and I was afraid it was starting to fail. Once I trained myself to use the Sleep/Wake button, I reduced the amount of use on the Home button dramatically, and in return, it’s much more responsive. In conjunction with this tip, I think any Home button seemingly “on the verge” can be saved.—KH