Restarting or Rebooting an iOS Device

By Jesse Hollington @jhollington ● Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Q: Although I’ve previously been able to reboot my new iPad by simultaneously depressing both the home button and volume control, this is no longer working. Is there any other way to do this?

- Sam

A: Actually, to reset your iPad or other iOS device, it’s the Home and Sleep/Wake buttons that need to be held down simultaneously; the volume button is not part of this process at all. You need to hold these two buttons down for about ten seconds, until you see the Apple logo.

Note that you should only do an actual reset of your iOS device as a last resort, such as in situations where it’s not responding and you can’t shut it down normally. Otherwise, Apple recommends that you follow the normal restart sequence: Press and hold the Sleep/Wake button for a few seconds until you see a red “Slide to Power Off” slider and then slide from left to right to power off your device. Once it has finished powering down, simply press and hold the Sleep/Wake button again to power back on.

Note that a restart is exactly the same as a reset in terms of rebooting your device, however the restart procedure allows the device to shut down gracefully as opposed to stopping everything in its tracks and rebooting immediately. This is the same in concept to shutting down Windows or Mac OS X using the standard shut-down sequence as opposed to using the hardware reset button found on older PCs or simply pulling the plug outright.