How to Troubleshoot and Maintain Your iPhone

In this article, I provide some advice about the care and maintenance of your iPhone, as well as tips about iPhone troubleshooting, updating iPhone system software, and even resetting the iPhone if something goes seriously wrong. In case you lose your iPhone, there's a feature that helps you find it, activate it remotely, or even disable it if it has fallen into the wrong hands. Finally, you get information about backing up your iPhone settings and content using iCloud.

How to clean the iPhone screen

• Use a dry, soft cloth. You can get most fingerprints off with a dry, soft cloth, such as the one you use to clean your eyeglasses or a cleaning tissue that’s lint and chemical free. Or try products used to clean lenses in labs, such as Kimwipes (which you can get from several major retailers, such as Amazon, Walmart, and office supply stores).
• Use a slightly dampened soft cloth. This may sound counter-intuitive to the previous tip, but to get rid of more stubborn grime, very (and I stress, very) slightly dampen the soft cloth. Again, make sure that whatever cloth material you use is free of lint.
• Remove the cables. Turn off your iPhone and unplug any cables from it before cleaning the screen with a moistened cloth, even a very slightly moistened one.
• Avoid too much moisture. It's best to keep your phone dry. iPhone 7 and later models have some degree of water resistance, but you don't want to press your luck. So, you don't have to freak out if you splash some water on your iPhone 11 Pro Max, but do be sure to wipe it dry right away, and it should be fine.
• Don’t use your fingers! That’s right, by using a stylus rather than your finger, you entirely avoid smearing oil from your skin or cheese from your pizza on the screen. There are a number of top-notch styluses out there; just search Amazon for “iPhone stylus” and you’ll be greeted with a multitude of them (most are reasonably priced).

Apple’s Pencil does not work with iPhones and is only compatible with iPads. Don’t mistake the Apple Pencil for an iPhone stylus.

• Never use household cleaners. They can degrade the coating that keeps the iPhone screen from absorbing oil from your fingers. Plus, there’s just simply no need to go that far since the screen cleans quite easily with little or no moisture at all.

Don't use premoistened lens-cleaning tissues to clean your iPhone screen! Most brands of wipes contain alcohol, which can damage the screen's coating.

Protect your gadget with a case

Several types of covers and cases are available, but be sure to get one that will fit your model of iPhone because their dimensions and button placements may differ, and some models have slightly different thicknesses. There are differences between covers and cases:

• Covers tend to be more for decoration than overall protection. While they do provide some minimal protection, they’re generally thin and not well-padded.
• Cases are more solid and protect most, if not all, of your iPhone. They’re usually a bit bulky and provide more padding than covers.

Extend your iPhone’s battery life

• Keep tabs on remaining battery life. You can estimate the amount of remaining battery life by looking at the Battery icon on the far-right end of the Status bar, at the top of your screen. Swipe down from the upper-right to open the Control Center, which shows the actual battery percentage remaining.
• Wired charging is generally faster than wireless charging: Charging your iPhone using the Lightning to USB (or USB-C) cable and a power plug is faster than using a wireless charging pad. For example, an iPhone 8, when plugged in with a USB-C charger, can draw up to 18 watts and charge to 50 percent in about 30 minutes. But when you set an iPhone 8 on a wireless charging pad, it can only draw 7.5 watts and will charge more slowly. A new iPhone 12 can draw up to 20 watts from a plugged-in USB-C charger, but with a fancy new MagSafe wireless charger, it's limited to 15 watts. So if you're in a hurry and need a quick charge, plugging in is the way to go.

• Use a case with an external battery pack. These cases are very handy when you’re traveling or unable to reach an electrical outlet easily. However, they’re also a bit bulky and can be cumbersome in smaller hands.
• The fastest way to charge an iPhone is to turn it off. If turning your iPhone completely off doesn’t sound like the best idea for you, you can disable Wi-Fi or Bluetooth to facilitate a faster recharge. Activate Airplane Mode to turn both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth off at the same time. However, this also disables your cellular connection, so you won’t be able to place or receive calls until you deactivate Airplane Mode.

• The Battery icon on the Status bar indicates when the charging is complete.

Be careful not to use your iPhone in ambient temperatures higher than 95 degrees F (35 degrees C), as doing so may damage your battery. Damage of this kind may not be covered under warranty. Charging in high temperatures may damage the battery even more.

If you notice that your battery won’t charge more than 80 percent, it could be getting too warm. Unplug the iPhone from the charger and try again after it’s cooled down a bit.

For much more detailed information on your iPhone’s battery, I’d suggest visiting Apple’s iPhone Battery and Performance website.

How to deal with a nonresponsive iPhone

Another thing to try — if you believe that an app is hanging up the iPhone — is to press the Sleep/Wake button for a couple of seconds, and then press and hold the Home button. For iPhones without a Home button, swipe up from the bottom of the screen, pause and hold your finger on the screen until the App Switcher opens, and then swipe up on the app that’s causing issues. The problematic app should then close.

You can always use the tried-and-true reboot procedure: On the iPhone, you press the Sleep/Wake button on the right until the red slider appears. Drag the slider to the right to turn off your iPhone. After a few moments, press the Sleep/Wake button to boot up the little guy again.

If the situation seems drastic and none of these ideas works, try to force restart your iPhone. To do this, press the Sleep/Wake button and the Home button at the same time for at least ten seconds until the Apple logo appears onscreen. For iPhones without a Home button, press and hold the Side button until the Apple logo appears.

If your phone has this problem often, try closing out some active apps that may be running in the background and using up too much memory. To do this, press the Home button twice to open the App Switcher (swipe up from the bottom of the screen and pause for iPhones without a Home button) and then from the screen showing active apps, swipe an app upward. Also check to see that you haven’t loaded up your iPhone with too much content, such as videos, which could be slowing down its performance.

How to update the iOS software

1. Tap Settings from the Home screen.
2. Tap General and then tap Software Update.
   
3. A message tells you whether your software is up-to-date. If it’s not, tap Download and Install and follow the prompts to update to the latest iOS version.

If you’re having problems with your iPhone, you can use the Update feature to try to restore the current version of the software. Follow the preceding set of steps and then tap the Restore button instead of the Software Update button in step 2.

Find a missing Apple device

You must have an iCloud account to use Find My.

If you’re using Family Sharing, someone in your family can find your device and play a sound. This works even if the volume on the device is turned down.

1. Tap Settings on the Home screen.
2. In Settings, tap your Apple ID at the top of the screen and then tap Find My.
3. In the Find My settings, tap Find My iPhone and then tap the On/Off switch for Find My iPhone to turn the feature on.
   

   You may also want to turn on the Enable Offline Finding option. This allows Apple devices to be found using their built-in Bluetooth technology, even when not connected to Wi-Fi or a cellular network. When you mark your device as missing on iCloud and another Apple user is close by the device, the two devices connect anonymously via Bluetooth and you’re notified of its location. Pretty cool stuff, and completely private for all involved parties.

4. From now on, if your iPhone is lost or stolen, you can go to iCloud from your computer, iPad, or another iPhone and enter your Apple ID and password.
5. In your computer’s browser, the iCloud Launchpad screen appears. Click the Find iPhone button to display a map of your device’s location and some helpful tools.
   
6. Click the All Devices option at the top of the window and click your iPhone in the list. In the window that appears, choose one of three options:

• To wipe information from the iPhone, click the Erase iPhone button.
• To lock the iPhone from access by others, click the Lost Mode button.
• Click Play Sound to have your iPhone play a “ping” sound that might help you locate it if you’re in its vicinity.

The Lost Mode feature allows you to send whomever has your iPhone a note saying how to return it to you.

Back up to iCloud

You must have an iCloud account to back up to iCloud.

To perform a backup to iCloud:

1. Tap Settings from the Home screen and then tap your Apple ID at the top of the screen.
2. Tap iCloud and then tap iCloud Backup.
3. In the pane that appears, tap the iCloud Backup switch to enable automatic backups. To perform a manual backup, tap Back Up Now, which will appear after you’ve enabled automatic backup. A progress bar shows how your backup is moving along.

You can also back up your iPhone using iTunes (for Macs running macOS Mojave or earlier, and for Windows-based PCs) or Finder (for Macs running macOS Catalina or newer). This method actually saves more types of content than an iCloud backup, and if you have encryption turned on in iTunes or Finder, it can save your passwords as well. However, this method does require that you connect to a computer to perform the backup. If you do back up and get a new iPhone down the line, you can restore all of your data to the new phone easily.