It’s easy to forget how often we use the Home button on our iPads — until it stops working. Maybe your Home button never works, or maybe it only works some of the time. It’s frustrating either way, but there is good news: A lot of Home button issues can be fixed at home. In this article, I’ll help you figure out why your iPad’s Home button won’t work, how to use AssistiveTouch as a temporary solution, and help you repair the broken Home button if you can’t fix it yourself.
- Does My iPad Need To Be Repaired?
- How Can I Use My iPad Without A Home Button?
- The Two Categories Of Home Button Problems
- How To Fix An iPad Home Button That Won’t Work
- 1. Test The Home Button Itself
- 2. Inspect Your iPad For Damage
- 3. Turn Your iPad Off And Back On, And Test
- 4. Repairing A Broken Home Button
- Home Button: Working As Usual
The iPad’s Home button is the small, circular button at the bottom of the iPad. It’s also the only button on the face of the tablet.
The most important use of the Home button is to take you to the Home screen, which houses all of your app icons. If you’re inside a particular app, you can hit the Home button to exit the app, revealing the Home screen.
Does My iPad Need To Be Repaired?
Not necessarily. Software problems and hardware problems can cause Home buttons to stop working. Software problems can usually be fixed at home, but if we find out your Home button isn’t working because of a hardware problem, I’ll help you get it repaired.
First things first: Let’s make sure you can still use your iPad before we move on to the fixes.
How Can I Use My iPad Without A Home Button?
When a Home button won’t work, the biggest problem people face is that they can’t exit their apps and return to the Home Screen. Basically, they get stuck inside their apps. Fortunately, there’s a feature in Settings called AssistiveTouch that allows you to add a virtual Home button to your iPad’s display.
If you’re reading this article and you’re stuck in an app now, turn your iPad all the way off and back on again. It’s a clunky fix, but it’s the only way.
How To Show The Home Button On Your iPad’s Screen
Go to Settings -> Accessibility -> Touch -> AssistiveTouch and tap the switch next to AssistiveTouch to turn it on. To use the Home button, tap the AssistiveTouch button on the screen, then tap Home. You can use your finger to move the AssistiveTouch button anywhere on the screen.
AssistiveTouch isn’t a real fix, but it is a good temporary solution while we figure out why your iPad Home button isn’t working.
The Two Categories Of Home Button Problems
Software Problems
Software problems occur when your iPad doesn’t respond correctly when you press the Home Button. The hardware could be sending the signal, but if the software isn’t paying attention, nothing happens. When your iPad’s software becomes corrupted, overloaded, or a helper program (called a process) crashes in the background of your iPad, your Home button may stop working.
Hardware Problems
Hardware problems with Home buttons usually fall into one of three categories:
General wear and tear (and gunk)
In some cases, and especially where iPads are used in dusty or dirty environments, the Home button can become less sensitive to touch. Don’t assume this is what’s going on if your Home button works intermittently (some of the time)–software problems cause this too.
The Home button becomes physically dislodged
Smash! Your Home button isn’t where it used to be, or it’s a little "off-kilter"–this is relatively rare.
One of the cables that connects the Home button to the logic board is damaged
The Home button is physically attached to your iPad’s display, and two cables carry the Home button signal to the logic board. One cable runs runs through the top of the display and connects at the top of the logic board, and the other cable connects to the logic board underneath the Home button on the left. If your iPad’s display was damaged or your iPad got wet, one of the Home button cables or connectors may have been damaged too.
How To Fix An iPad Home Button That Won’t Work
Apple Store employees see iPads with broken Home buttons all the time. I’d always check for damage first, then troubleshoot the software, and then repair the hardware if it was necessary.
A general rule of thumb: If your Home button stopped working after your iPad was physically damaged or got wet, your iPad probably needs to be repaired — but not always. If it has gradually gotten worse over time or no major iPad life event happened before it stopped working, we may be able to fix it at home.
1. Test The Home Button Itself
Click the Home button with your finger. Does it feel normal, or does it feel stuck? Gently move your finger from side to side — does the Home button feel loose? If it doesn’t feel the way it should, we may be dealing with a hardware problem — but if it has always felt "a little off" and it only recently stopped working, it could be an underlying software problem.
The Most Important Physical Home Button Test
When I worked at the Apple Store, a lot of the time people would come in saying that their Home button only worked some of the time, but we would discover that the Home button worked all of the time in certain spots, and none of the time in others. One way we’ll be able to say for sure that it is a hardware problem is by doing the following test:
Click the Home button on the very top. Does it work? Try the far left side, and then the bottom, and then the far right side. Try the corners. If it only works in some locations, like on the top but not on the bottom, you definitely have a hardware problem. There’s no fixing a Home button with a "directional" problem like this at home, but a lot of the people I worked with would choose simply to live with the problem now that they knew where to press the Home button.
2. Inspect Your iPad For Damage
Take a close look at the Home button, your iPad’s display, and inside the charging port and headphone jack on the bottom of your iPad. Is there any physical damage or corrosion? Is it possible your iPad got wet? Did other components (like the camera) stop working too, or is it only the Home button that’s having the problem?
If you discover physical or liquid damage, it’s almost a sure bet that your Home button isn’t working because of a hardware problem, and your iPad may need to be repaired — skip to the section called Repairing A Broken Home Button below.
3. Turn Your iPad Off And Back On, And Test
We’re heading into the software troubleshooting phase of the tutorial. As we discussed, your Home button may not work if your iPad’s software doesn’t react the way it should when you press the Home button. If your iPad has been very slow lately, apps have been crashing, or your Home button stopped working after you upgraded to a new version of iPadOS, a software problem may be the reason why your Home button won’t work.
The first (and least invasive) software troubleshooting step is to turn your iPad off and back on again. If you already rebooted your iPad to turn on AssistiveTouch and that didn’t fix your Home button, just move on.
When you turn your iPad off, all the little programs that keep your iPad running, one of which processes "events" like a Home button press, are forced to shut down. When you turn your iPad back on, those programs start fresh again, and sometimes that’s enough to fix a minor software glitch.
Go to Settings > General > Shut Down. Swipe the red and white power icon from left to right to shut down your iPad. Wait about a minute to let your iPad completely shut down. Then, press and hold the power button again until the Apple logo appears on the screen.
4. Repairing A Broken Home Button
If you’re under warranty and your iPad isn’t damaged, head straight for an Apple Store (make an appointment with the Genius Bar so you don’t have to wait for help) or start a mail-in repair on Apple’s support website. When a Home button won’t work and the iPad is out of warranty or damaged, people generally go in one of two directions:
Repair Your Home Button
Anyone can replace your Home button, but only Apple can reenable Touch ID, the fingerprint sensor built into the Home button. Touch ID, contains security features that link a specific Home button to a specific iPad, and for security reasons, Apple is the only company who can crack the code.
If you have a Touch ID-enabled iPad and anyone other than Apple repairs your iPad, the Home button will function without the Touch ID functionality.
Live With Assistive Touch
About half of the people I’d work with would choose to live with AssistiveTouch, the "software" Home button that lives on the iPad’s display. It’s not a perfect solution, but it is a free solution. If you’re shopping for a new iPad or you’re due for an upgrade, this may be the excuse you’ve been waiting for to upgrade to a new iPad.
Home Button: Working As Usual
A Home button that won’t work is one of the most frustrating problems that iPad owners can face. AssistiveTouch is an excellent stopgap, but it’s certainly not a perfect fix. I hope you’ve been able to repair your Home button at home, but if you haven’t, I’d like to hear about which repair option you chose in the comments section below.
