It is natural to feel frustrated when your iPhone’s touch screen is not working. You use your iPhone for everything from making calls to scrolling photos – but do not let your “touch screen issues” knock you down. In this article, I’ll explain why your iPhone touch screen is not working, how to fix issues that can be fixed at home, and recommend great repair options if necessary.
There are many reasons why your iPhone’s touch screen may stop working. Fortunately, there are also many ways to fix these problems. Let’s begin with some tips.
Useful Tips
Before fixing the iPhone screen problem, you should make sure that your hands are clean and dry, and then try these steps:
- Remove any cover or screen protector from your device.
- Wipe the screen with a soft, slightly damp, lint-free cloth.
- Charge your iPhone using the original charger and cable.
- Disconnect your device.
8 Ways to Fix iPhone Touch Screen Not Working
Here are the best possible ways to fix touch issues on iPhone 6, 7, 8 and X.
Solution 1. Restart the iPhone device
Before you rush into any other troubleshooting procedure, you can restart the iPhone to fix the iPhone screen not working problem by following the steps below.
- Hold and press the sleep/wake button for a few seconds until the slider appears.
- Then, slide the slider to turn the device off completely.
- Finally, turn it on again by pressing and holding the sleep/wake button until you see the Apple logo.
In many cases, the touch screen will function normally after the device is restarted.
Solution 2. Adjust 3D Touch Sensitivity
Sometimes 3D sensitivity of the iPhone touch will make the iPhone’s touch screen not work. So check it and try to fix the iPhone touch screen not working issue.
- Navigate to Settings.
- Touch General.
- Touch Accessibility.
- Select 3D Touch.
- Scroll down and touch 3D Touch.
- Now you can switch the 3D Touch On / Off, or you can scroll down and adjust the sensitivity for Light, Medium or Firm.
Solution 3. Diagnose third-party applications in safe mode.
Sometimes a specific app causes the iPhone screen to not work. In this case, you can uninstall faulty applications in safe mode to fix the touch screen not working problem.
Here’s how to enter safe mode:
- Press and hold the Power and Home buttons simultaneously until the screen turns black.
- Then release the Home button, but keep pressing the
- Hold the volume up when the Apple logo appears until the trampoline is loaded.
- If you do not see more settings in the Settings menu, you are already in Safe Mode. All third-party applications and services are now disabled.
You may need to disable or uninstall the latest applications that you have installed, as they may cause the problem if the touch screen works fine in safe mode. Then exit safe mode and restart your iPhone. After the reboot, the device will return to normal mode.
Solution 4. Free up space on the iPhone
If your iPhone has zero storage available, you may encounter a problem that does not respond to the touch screen.
Therefore, it is recommended to check and ensure that your iPhone has enough memory space by following the steps below. You have to free up space if you have 0 bytes to fix the iPhone touch screen not working problem.
- Tap Settings on the Home page
- Choose General.
- Click Storage & iCloud Usage
- Click Manage Storage.
You will now see the details of the current memory status, including the available memory of your iPhone. If there is no more free space, you can delete some unwanted apps, files, photos, and other unnecessary content from your iPhone to free up more space on your device.
Solution 5. Downgrade to the previous version of iOS
As we all know, not all generations of iPhones are suitable for upgrading to the new iOS version due to hardware incompatibility. Therefore, some users may find the touch screen not responding problem after updating iOS. Here you can downgrade the iOS version of your iPhone to solve the problem of the touch screen that is not working.
Solution 6. Reset your iPhone
You can try resetting the device to factory settings if the touch screen is completely unresponsive. How to reset your iPhone or iPad?
- Go to the settings.
- Click General.
- Select Reset.
- Select Delete all content and settings.
Unfortunately, this will delete all data on your iPhone device, including photos, messages, contacts, etc. Therefore, you must back up the necessary files before performing this operation.
Solution 7. Restore your iPhone with iTunes
Some users have reported that they successfully resolved the iPhone’s touch screen not working problem by restoring their iPhone with iTunes. You can try the steps below to resolve the unresponsive iPhone touch screen problem after the iOS update.
Step 1. Connect your iPhone or iPad to your computer.
Step 2. Launch iTunes on your computer.
Step 3. Click the Device tab in the upper-left corner of the iTunes window.
Step 4. Choose Summary from the menu on the left.
Step 5. Select Restore Backup in iTunes.
Step 6. Note the date and size of each backup and choose the most relevant one.
Step 7. Click Restore and wait for the end of the restore time. If necessary, enter the password to unlock iPhone backups (used when encrypting your backups).
Solution 8. Contact professional help
If all of the above troubleshooting methods do not work, you should contact Apple support, go to Apple Store, or visit an Apple authorized repair center for further assistance and recommendations.
Is your Touch Screen Not Working At all?
A lot of the above methods may not be possible if your iPhone touch screen is not at all responding.
If you dropped your iPhone recently then there is a huge possibility that the damage is external and to the hardware. In such case, any of the methods related to software won’t work.
In such case, you can try to find the impact location and try tapping it. Tap the edges and see if it responds or not. In some cases, a portion of touch may still work. However, it will still need a professional’s help.
Normally, the iPhone has 2 things for touch. 1 is the screen itself and the other thing is called Digitizer. The digitizer is placed beneath the screen and it senses your touch. Upon dropping, both these things can get damaged or may get loose.
If the screen is shattered, you can simply get a screen from stores like AliExpress and get it changed. This video can help you understand more;
Bottom line
You may now be familiar with how to fix iPhone or iPad touch screen problems, such as the touch screen not working, the touch stopped responding, etc. Your iPhone touch screen is a complex and fascinating piece of technology. I hope this article has helped if the iPhone touch screen is not working and I’d love to know what solution worked for you in the comments section below.