It’s frustrating when your iPhone touch screen is not working as you cannot use it. Because the touch screen is almost the only way of interacting with your iPhone.
But don’t worry it’s a fixable problem, providing you know what to look for.
This guide walks you through several troubleshooting steps you can try to fix your unresponsive iPhone touch screen step by step.
Fixes for iPhone Unresponsive Touch Screen
1. Check Your iPhone Screen
Before getting into troubleshooting, let’s do some basic stuff here. Make sure to check your screen for any residues, liquids, or sticky substances that might interfere with the screen. With a soft cloth, clean off your iPhone screen to remove anything from the display.
Depending on what environment you work in, your fingers might often get dirty or wet. You’ll make sure your fingers are clean and dry before using your phone.
Cases with built-in screen protectors like Lifeproof will alter the screen sensitivity to touch. Try to use your iPhone without the case to see if there’s any change.
If the touch screen works fine, the case was the problem. You’ll have to invest in a case without a built-in screen protector.
If the problem still persists, move on to the next step.
2. Force Restart Your iPhone
Sometimes with a simple reboot, you can fix your iPhone screen unresponsive to touch. But there will be time, you might need to force restart your iPhone.
- For iPhone X, iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus: Press and quickly release the volume up button. Then, quickly press and release the volume down button. Finally, press and hold the Power button until you see the Apple logo.
- On iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus: Press and hold at the same time the power/lock key and the volume down key until you see the Apple logo.
- For iPhone 6s, iPhone SE and earlier: Press and hold down the Home button and the power button until the Apple logo appears on the screen.
When the iPhone restarts, the screen should work fine again if it was a software-related issue. If that didn’t fix the problem, keep reading.
3. Update, Delete, Reinstall App
If your touch screen is not responding when you use a particular app, that app might be to blame. When the app is frozen, the touch screen will not respond no matter what you do.
You may press the Home button to exit the app or end the non-responsive app. All you need to do is to check for any updates in the App Store or delete and reinstall the app in question.
Press and hold the app until the icons start to jiggle. You’ll see an “X” on the upper left corner, tap on it to delete the app from your iPhone.
If the touch screen still doesn’t work, the app might have a bug that needs to be fixed. Send a message to the App developer to let them know about it. That way they can address the issue in the next update.
4. Free Up Some Space
If your iPhone runs out of storage, the touch screen might become unresponsive. You can check your storage by going to your phone Settings > General > iPhone Storage.
It’s recommended to have some storage available for iOS to work properly. Many apps will become unresponsive since they need storage for their cached files.
If you don’t have enough storage, start to delete the apps that you don’t use. Apps like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram use lots of storage.
I know for some people it can be hard to live without those apps, but it’s even harder to live with an iPhone with an unresponsive screen.
Tip: Use your browser to access Facebook, it will save you tons of space on your iPhone.
Those vacation photos and videos take a lot of space on your iPhone, use one of the best cloud storage services to save them.
5. Restore Your iPhone
If everything seems to fail, time to perform a hard reset to return your iPhone to a factory default state. Be aware a hard reset will erase everything on your iPhone (your data, apps, and settings).
Before proceeding make sure you have a backup ready. If you’re not sure how to do that, the steps in this article will help you to back up your iPhone. Once you’ve done that, you can safely factory reset your iPhone.
To do this, hold the Power and Home buttons down at the same time. Wait until the Apple logo appears on the screen, and then let go.
For those who own an iPhone 7, 7 Plus, 8, or 8 Plus, press and hold down the power and the volume up buttons together until the Apple logo appears on the screen, and then let go.
The touch screen should work at this point if there was no physical damage. If that’s the case, you may need to pay the Genuises a visit to the nearest Apple Store.
6. Screen Cracked or Damaged
A physical problem might affect your iPhone touch screen. If you’ve dropped your iPhone recently, then that might have damaged the screen, which could cause touchscreen issues.
This is obvious, the touch screen may partially or totally not work on a broken screen. The display is connected to the logic board of your iPhone, which controls everything. When you drop it that connection may be loosened up.
If there’s not a firm connection between the display and the logic board, the touch screen won’t work properly. A screen replacement should fix the issue.
We don’t recommend you to fix it yourself if you don’t know what you’re doing. Your best option is to schedule a Genius Bar appointment.
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