There’s nothing like a quick recalibration to make your gadgets feel that much faster. In the case of your iDevice, you may have noticed your home button isn’t a quick to bring up the Springboard as it used to be. If that’s the case, this easy tweak might be exactly what you’re after.
These steps are brought to us by Redmond Pie, so be sure to thank them when you can. There’s nothing complicated about it at all and, after you’re done, you should have a snappier home button. So, here’s what you need to do.
1. Open up one of the built-in iOS apps. This can be Weather, Mail, Contacts… whatever. As long as it’s one of the original apps on your device.
2. Hold the power button until the slide-off graphic appears. When it does, release the power button.
3. Hold down the home button until the slide-off graphics disappears. You should be back at the home screen.
That’s it, you’re done! I tried this on my iPhone 4 and it felt slightly snappier. If you’ve noticed your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch’s home button isn’t as quick as it used to be, there’s no harm in giving this a go. Let us know your results.
Maxy
Monday, December 26, 2011 at 12:55 PMOh damn it does work
Paul
Monday, December 26, 2011 at 2:32 PMIsn’t this just the way to force quit an application?
Stew
Monday, December 26, 2011 at 2:46 PMNo, that’s dbl-pressing the home button to bring up active apps, long-pressing any running app then hitting the “-” icon that appears over each app icon.
Paul
Monday, December 26, 2011 at 3:54 PMSorry, I should clarify. This was the OLD way of forcing an application to close.
http://forum.radioshack.wdsserve.com/t5/AT-T-Discussion/How-to-completely-close-applications-on-iOS-3-and-above/m-p/2445
Stew
Monday, December 26, 2011 at 6:10 PMHuh! Well there you go. I stand corrected.
Steve
Monday, December 26, 2011 at 2:43 PMI’m sorry for being new, but where’s the power button mentioned in part 2?
Logan Booker
Monday, December 26, 2011 at 3:02 PMIt’s the button along the top of the phone. It’s also called the “sleep/wake” button by Apple.
Steve
Monday, December 26, 2011 at 3:21 PMWow, I’ve only had my iphone for a couple of days and it already sped it up a heap!
adam
Monday, December 26, 2011 at 3:19 PMOff topic, but how can we get avatars? I can’t find anywhere to do it at.
Danny Allen
Monday, December 26, 2011 at 5:35 PMOur comments feed now also supports Gravatars, so you can add your picture to comments
Rocket Man
Monday, December 26, 2011 at 5:31 PMMmmm a bit faster…
jt
Monday, December 26, 2011 at 5:36 PMThat absolutely works. Huzzah!
Kevin
Monday, December 26, 2011 at 5:39 PMDouble damn. It does work…and here I was thinking I’ll need to get myself the 4S.
Ric
Monday, December 26, 2011 at 5:50 PMThis works, but how and why does this work? What does this change about the device?
Anupam
Monday, December 26, 2011 at 7:59 PMLovely – Crashes me to Springboard – DUH !
Varinder
Monday, December 26, 2011 at 8:44 PMThere is a quiet improvement
Thanks Gizo
Simon
Monday, December 26, 2011 at 9:57 PMWorked for me. I was having trouble with mine. This fixed it
JonBOY
Monday, December 26, 2011 at 11:16 PMDidn’t do anything for my 4S. Maybe I’m immune to the placebo effect.
Goober
Tuesday, December 27, 2011 at 3:03 AMYour 4s should be ok being a new unit. My 4s is great but my last 4 I had to take back to apple after about 6 months which they exchanged for a ‘refurbished but not refurbished one’. Also, I was about to buy a home button on eBay to change it for a friend with a 4 but sent her this link in the meantime. She says it has worked, she even OMG’d me! Thanks Giz, saved me time, effort and money!
Makk
Tuesday, December 27, 2011 at 5:35 AMGood stuff. Big improvement on my 2 year old 3GS.
Harrison
Tuesday, December 27, 2011 at 1:36 PMIs there anyway to speedup the unlock? My iPod touch 4th Gen and iPhone 4 all take around 3 or 4 seconds to unlock after i’ve typed in the correct code…I get the feeling it’s caused by ios5 as i haven’t had the issue before? :)
Paul
Tuesday, December 27, 2011 at 2:33 PMIs it just me or is every update for the last six months make iOS slower and slower. And to add to that more glitches with each update.
The tip mentioned in this post has mad some improvement, thanks Giz.
Also like to not that I have very little in the way of apps on my phone & IPad
Leonie Smith
Tuesday, December 27, 2011 at 6:13 PMActually my home button totally failed this week! I tried this trick and it didn’t help…:( but I read about slightly bending the USB connector at the iPhone connection slightly up, and wow it fixed it! but I wonder how long before it craps out again…apparently there are some issues with the home button on many iPhone 4′s after a year…
clinton1550
Tuesday, December 27, 2011 at 6:32 PMTried it on my iPhone 4, hasn’t improved the Home Button but then my Home Button doesn’t work anyway. Double presses are sometimes registered as single presses and vice versa.
Shell
Tuesday, December 27, 2011 at 6:41 PMNah no change unfortunately
Sicarius123
Wednesday, December 28, 2011 at 7:26 PMMade a noticeable difference on my 3G-S