The most common iPhone crash is one where the application you are working in suddenly ceases operation, the screen momentarily turns black, then the iPhone home screen appears. In a slightly more serious manifestation, the crash will result in a complete freeze where the iPhone is unresponsive. Your initial reaction could be… simply yank the battery to cut the power and reset the phone, but there is no batter! But let me remind you that before you do anything to your iPhone, finding out what causes the problem is necessary.

Crashes are most likely to occur when loading graphics-heavy pages, or those with large (in terms of file size) images or music. The Apple has some sort of a contingency in place for lock-ups or a frozen iPhone. Here are the safest ways to troubleshoot your iPhone when an application crashes.

The very first thing to do is to make sure that your iPhone is fully charged. You can charge your iPhone by using your iPhone AC adapter or with a high-powered USB port. Make sure that the USB port is high-powered, otherwise your iPhone will not charge. Your keyboard USB port is an example of a low powered port. If you see the red part of the battery image flash three times and then the screen goes black, this means that that the iPhone is not charging.

Restarting your iPhone is also a safe way to troubleshoot your iPhone. The iPhone is essentially a small computer and just like a regular computer, sometimes programs freeze and keep you from using the phone for anything else. In this situation, it’s easy to quit that program. Simply hold down the Home button at the bottom center of the phone for at least six seconds. This should quit the program and return you to the Home screen.
Once that’s done… restart the phone. To restart your iPhone, hold down the sleep/wake button at the top right-hand corner of the iPhone for 10 seconds. This will bring up a screen asking you to run the slider across the screen to turn the phone off. When you slide the slider to the right, a progress wheel will appear and in a second or two, the iPhone will be off. To turn it back on again, just hold down the sleep/wake button until the Apple icon appears on the screen and then wait for the phone to start up.

To reset your iPhone is also a good way to fix a frozen iPhone. This solution fixed my iPhone. Resetting an iPhone is nothing more than a hard reset or a forced reboot. You’re simply cutting the power and making it reboot. To do this, hold the sleep/wake button and Home buttons simultaneously for a few second. The display will quickly wipe itself and you should see the black background and white Apple logo, signifying a reset well done.

Another factor that causes your iPhone to freeze is the content. This will require more than a restart, you need to remove the content that is not properly synced. It could be your contacts, calendars, songs, photos, videos, or podcasts. To do this, go to iTunes, select Preferences from the File menu, then iPhone and delete your backed up iPhone settings — this includes text messages, notes, call history, contact favorites, sound settings, widget settings. Again, one or more of these content might be problematic.

You may also try to reset the settings of your iPhone. Go to the Settings application, tap General then select the Erase All Content and Settings. This will delete all media and data on the iPhone, as well as recent calls, etc., and all other settings.

Restoring your iPhone might be your last resort. To do this, use the latest version of iTunes, then connect your iPhone. When it appears in the Source list, click on Restore in the Summary tab. This will also wipe the iPhone and all your information on it.

As I’ve mentioned, resetting my iPhone fixed my issue and I’m even jamming with my iPhone now as I write this. There are lots of ways to fix a frozen iPhone and troubleshooting your iPhone is so easy. Also, remember that you can send a crash report to Apple when your iPhone is connected … providing the crash report will enable the iPhone software team to have valuable data that might be rolled into a future update.

By: Dave Chan

Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com

David Chan shares his first hand experience working on the iPhone. He also experienced some problems using the phone and would like to share with you his ways on how to everypathnbeyond.com.