Yes, yes, I know this information is on other pages around the internet, but if you’re anything like me then you keep forgetting which iPhone/iPod-Touch keystroke is which. So, without further ado:
- Press and hold the ‘Home’ button for at least ten seconds to terminate the current foreground application. Use this when an application freezes while on-screen.
- Press and hold the ‘Home’ button, then press the ‘Wake/Sleep’ button once. The screen goes white and then fades in – to let you know that you’ve just grabbed a high quality screenshot – perfect for posting in blog articles.
- Press and hold the ‘Wake/Sleep’ button for five seconds. This offers to turn the iPhone/iPod-Touch off, physically. Useful when something’s gone wrong with the electronics (e.g. Wi-Fi’s stopped working) or when not planning to use the device for a few weeks.
- Press and hold both ‘Wake/Sleep’ and ‘Home’ buttons for ten seconds (ignore the option to ‘power off’). This performs a ‘soft’ reset, restarting OS X but with some core ‘state’ files reinitialised. Use this in emergencies if you’re having a problem and a simple power off/on doesn’t do the trick.
- Turn off, then press and hold the ‘Wake/Sleep’ button for ten seconds. This performs a ‘hard’ reset and – though I haven’t tried it – should wipe the iPhone/iPod-Touch and it will require restoring from iTunes. Treat this keypress as a strict last resort and it’s probably only to do it under advice from Apple!
All clear now? Phew. These keypresses (unlike the rest of the iPhone’s operation) aren’t exactly memorable. At least you’ll usually only need to remember two of them!