Remember the Old Ways

The 1½-year-old iPhone 6 froze repeatedly, that is, the touchscreen was totally non-responsive. The sleep button did work, but the iPhone could not be shut down the normal way because the final step--swiping the power-off slide--was on the touchscreen.

Pressing the Sleep/Wake and Home buttons simultaneously forced the iPhone to restart, but having to perform this step four times an hour was quite inconvenient. Perhaps the cause was an iOS bug, but the problem persisted through two system updates.

It felt like a software issue, so before taking the phone to the local Genius bar I deleted all apps installed this year (none of them are indispensable) and even some older ones that were little used. Still no luck.

Finally I pulled out the big gun--Erase All Content and Settings---and it took a few hours to restore useful data and applications. The freezing stopped.

Wiping the hard disk and re-installing the operating system was a last resort that often worked with Windows machines without knowing exactly why.

Remember the old ways, grasshopper, they may serve you well.