iOS 8: I Can't Turn The Phone Off

My wife recently sent me a message on chat telling me she couldn't turn her phone off.

Of course I sent the usual "You're going to hate the obvious question," confirming that she tried holding the power button down for several seconds. She eventually confirmed it but not before telling me holding the home button did nothing first.

She said the only thing she had changed was enabling a feature where the hotspot turns on when the iPad is near. If you're curious, I think she is referring to "instant hotspot".

At first, she just couldn't get the phone to switch apps or accept input. Attempting to send a text message gave me an error on my phone, and at one point the button presses apparently put the display to sleep the wouldn't let it wake up.

I tried calling the phone (turns out that is still a feature) and she said it rang, but wouldn't let her answer the call; eventually it rolled to voicemail.

"You might have to run the battery out or try connecting it to iTunes," I said.

"I'm not home at the moment," she said. "I don't have access to iTunes."

"Try holding the home button and the power button at the same time for ten seconds," I said.

A few moments later she said, "It's showing an Apple logo."

That seemed to fix it; a forced system reboot. Or at least it's behaving for now. Was it an iOS 8 bug? Just a glitch? Whatever it was, remember there is the standard shutdown...hold the power button until you get the slider prompt to shut down...and a force reset where you hold the power button and home button until the Apple logo pops up.

Posted with Blogsy