How to Revive Your iPhone If 2.0.1 Crashed It

As I was updating my iPhone 3G to 2.0.1 this morning, something aweful happened. Although the back up went smoothly, the upgrade process crashed my iPhone and froze it, leaving me in a confused and worried state. On that note, I had to hit up Apple support.

As my iPhone 3G was upgrading to 2.0.1, an unexpected unknown error popped up.

At this point, my iPhone was no longer recognized by iTunes and went into somekind of an odd trance. The screen turned black and an Apple logo showed up (the same screen you see when your iPhone is being turned on). Occasionally, the “loading” icon would appear at the bottom of the screen.

No buttons worked. Taking out the SIM card did nothing. The iPhone was completely, 100% frozen.

So I called Apple support. Turns out lots (and I mean LOTS) of people are having this problem today. So if you’re one of them, this guide to bringing your iPhone back to life after being crashed by 2.0.1 should save you a phone call to Apple (and a lot of stress).

_________________________________________________________________________

Note: Although the reason for the 2.0.1 caused crash is unsure, it was probably a result of my iTunes not being up to date. I had not yet updated to 7.7.1.

Apple customer support told me that this is very possibly the reason for the crash, but they admitted that the software update itself is acting buggy. So whether or not you have the latest iTunes or not, follow all the steps in this guide.

1. Disconnect your iPhone from the USB chord (no need to “eject” in iTunes because the error automatically kicks your iPhone off)
2. Hold down the Home button and the Sleep button for 10+ seconds. You will see a white light flash. The screen will shut off. Continue holding the buttons until the screen turns back on.
3. At this point, your screen will display the “Connect to iTunes” screen.
4. Leave your phone alone – make sure it’s not connected to your computer.
5. Close iTunes and all other programs running on your computer
6. Uninstall (via Control Panel) “Apple Software Update” and “Apple Mobile Device Support”
7. After you uninstalled the 2 above programs, uninstall “Quick Time” and then “iTunes”
8. Restart your computer
9. Make sure you have no “QuickTime” or iTunes” folders left anywhere on your computer. If you’re using a PC, go to C>>Program Files, and search for “iTunes” or “QuickTime”. Delete the blank folder.
10. Go to http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/ and download iTunes.
11. Run the installation of iTunes and QuickTime.
12. Open iTunes and connect your iPhone.
13. You will get a pop up notifying you that you “must restore your iPhone”.
14. Press restore.
15. Allow ample time for your iPhone to restore.
16. Once the first restore is complete, iTunes asks you whether you want to restore from a back up or treat it as a new phone.
17. Hopefully you have backed up your iPhone, otherwise you will lose all contacts, music, video, photos, and apps.

Ta Da! Your iPhone is back to life.

Note: If you have not yet updated to 2.0.1, it is extremely important to make sure you have iTunes 7.7.1 first. To check, open iTunes and go to Help >> About iTunes. Update if necessary.

Lock / shut down / force quit / reset

You’d be surprised to know how many people don’t know how to turn their phone completely off. I’m not talking about “locking” the phone where you simply press the Sleep/Wake button on the top of your phone.

For a while, I was under the false impression that locking the phone was equivalent to putting your Mac to sleep. But when your phone is locked, the screen turns off but the app that’s running at the time continues to run. For instance a relaxation app is able to continue playing sound but save battery power with the screen off. So, locking your phone is actually more like “display sleep” on your Mac (⌃⇧⏏ or Control-Shift-Eject for those of you who can’t read Macroglyphics).

So to ensure that your phone is using as little battery as possible, you’re best off always pressing the Home button before locking so that no app remains running.

Note: Most apps do nothing while the phone is locked but I’ve seen too many apps where this isn’t the case, so I say “better safe than sorry” and usually quit before locking.

To turn your phone completely off, press the Sleep/Wake button for a few seconds then drag the red slider that appears.

When should you turn your phone completely off? The two situation that I usually do this is when I’m almost out of battery and when my phone is acting kind of wonky.

If your battery’s almost dead and you’re nowhere near some way of charging it your best bet is to turn it off if you’re going to need it to make a call or check something on the ‘net (assuming you can forego and incoming calls/SMSs).

And if your phone’s been acting flaky, where apps are starting to get really slow or behave unexpectedly, turning your phone off then back on usually gets things back to normal.

Have you ever been using an app and it’s become very unresponsive or completely frozen? You can force quit it by pressing the Home button for at least six seconds.

And finally, if your phone seems to be completely frozen where attempting to turn it off or force quit the current app does nothing, you can force a reset of your phone by pressing both the Sleep/Wake and Home buttons for at least ten seconds. Note that while Apple technically calls this a “reset”, it’s actually more like a “reboot” and none of your settings will be changed.

7. Home button options

8 More iPhone Tricks You Might Not Have Known (iPod Touch Tricks Included)

We recently showed you “12 iPhone Tricks You Might Not Know“, and we’re back to give you more. Due to all the great feedback our readers gave us, and some further iPhone experimentation (a.k.a. iPerimentation) on our part, we’ve found some other tips and tricks that can enhance your iPhone experience.

While you might find some of these iPhone tips and tricks elementary, I’m sure there’s atleast something on this list that you didn’t know of. And if you did, congrats iPhoner – now see how you stand up against the ultimate iPhone glossary.

1. Double tap space bar for a period –

When typing on your iPhone, double tapping the space bar at the end of a sentence automatically enters a period followed by a space. No need to press “123” to get to the numbers and symbols page where the period typically resides. I use this trick daily and it heavily increases my typing speed (especially when texting).

2. Tap the bottom corner to navigate home screens

When on your home screen, try tapping the bottom right/left corner to switch between pages instead of swiping your finger accross the screen.

3. Take out your SIM card during backup and sync –

We’ve all experienced it. You’re backing up and syncing your iPhone, and the hour long back up is nearly complete. Then all of a sudden you get a phone call, and the whole back up/sync is null and void.

To avoid this happening, simply start the backup/sync, then pull out your SIM card. Do not worry, this does not damage your phone at all. Put it back in once everything is complete. This way, your backup won’t get interrupted.

This tip is also useful if you need to make a phone call while your iPhone is backing up/syncing. Since unlocking your phone cancels the process, just take out your SIM card, pop it in your old cell phone, and call away.

4. Move “dock” icons

You’d be surprised how often this tip is overlooked. The 4 icons located on the grey bar at the bottom of your iPhone – Phone, Mail, iPod, Safari – are movable, just like the rest of the icons. Just press and hold the icons, then drag them while they are shaking. Press the home button when you’re done. You can put any 4 icons on your dock.

In the screenshots, note the difference between pic 1 and 2.

5. Automatically capitalize and add apostrophes

The iPhone automatically capitalizes certain words (“I” when you type “i”). It also automatically adds apostrophes (“I’m” when you type “Im”).

6. Double tap a column on Safari to fit-to-page

When browsing the Internet on your iPhone’s Safari browser, double tap any column, word, or picture to fit it’s width to your iPhone’s screen. This is extremely useful for reading blogs.

The first screenshot is the page when it firsts load. The second screenshot is the page once the main text was double tapped.

7. Manually select the icon image for a bookmarked webpage

This one’s a little more confusing. When you are browsing a website on your iPhone’s Safari browser and want to add its icon to your home screen, press the plus sign and select “Add to Home Screen”.

The image in the icon, however, is a screenshot of the page you were on. So if you want the icon to look a specific way, zoom in on a particular item on the page. Whether you want the website’s logo, or some picture on the page, simply zoom in on that part of the page before you press “Add to Home Screen”.

Note: This doesn’t work with all websites. Popular sites like Google have special icons for the iPhone’s home screen.

Go to your website of choice.	Zoom in on your favorite part.
Press the + sign and choose Add to Home Screen.	Name the bookmark appropriately (Digg – Apple).
Now that exact part of the webpage is displayed in your icon.

8. Your iPhone’s headphones have a multi-function button!

You’d be surprised how many people don’t know that the iPhone’s native headphones have a button on the microphone.

Just squeeze the microphone together, and the button gets pressed.

The buttons functions:

In call…

• Press once to answer a call
• Press twice to send the call to voicemail
• Press once to hang up a call

In call while second call coming in… [thank you silver0fox]

• click once to hold current call and switch to new call
• hold for 2 secs and release to ignore new call

Out of call…

• Press once to activate iPod and play song
• Press once to pause song
• Press twice to skip to next song

Using these 8 tips will not only increase your iPhone IQ, but improve your overall iPhone experience. For more iPhone tips and tricks, check out our older article “12 iPhone Tricks You May Not Know“.

Be sure to share your new found knowledge (or atleast inform people that their iPhone’s headphones have a button).