Why Resetting Your IPhone Can Trigger 911 (and How to Avoid It)
Smartphones are just tiny computers and all computers stop working from time to time. Your device will freeze and become unresponsive, instantly becoming a $1,000+ paperweight. That’s when a hard reset comes in, a simple combination of button presses that will hopefully get things working again. However, if you have an iPhone, you may be able to call the police instead of fixing the problem.
Maybe this has happened to you: you’re looking for a guide to hard reset your device , following the instructions to the best of your ability, only to watch helplessly as your frozen iPhone dials 911. Hmm, what gives?
It all has to do with an emergency SOS call and how annoyingly easy it is to accidentally call . Emergency SOS is a quick way to contact emergency services in an emergency when you don’t have the time or ability to access the phone app and dial 911. Obviously, you want a feature like this to be easy to use in case of a real emergency. . The problem, however, is that one of the Emergency SOS triggers is too close to a forced reset procedure for most iPhones. One way to activate Emergency SOS is to hold the volume up and side button together: after a couple of seconds, you’ll see a power menu screen with an Emergency SOS slider among the options. However, if you keep these buttons pressed, you will immediately trigger an emergency SOS call.
Meanwhile, for every iPhone since 8 (including all iPhones with Face ID), you do a hard reset like this:
- Quickly press and release the volume up button.
- Quickly press and release the volume down button.
- Hold down the side button. The screen will eventually turn black. Release the button only when the Apple logo appears.
It seems simple enough, except for a couple of questions. First, make sure you find the instructions for your specific iPhone. It’s easy to find instructions on how to force reset iPhone, only to read the procedure for iPhone 7, not for your new iPhone. This phone requires you to hold down the volume up and side button until you see the Apple logo, the exact combination of buttons that leads to an emergency call. Yes.
Even if you find the correct instructions, you may not follow them all the way. You may forget to release the volume button when going to the side button, and since your iPhone is frozen, you may not even see the Emergency SOS option appear until it’s too late.
Now treat this article like a public service announcement: the next time your iPhone starts acting up, look for instructions for your specific model . Once you do this, make sure you follow the instructions exactly. Do not hold down the button if the instructions say “release” and do not release the button until the instructions explicitly say so.
Airplane mode excludes emergency calls
If you feel like Emergency SOS is a time bomb for you when you restart your iPhone, try turning on Airplane mode first. If your phone is in a bad location, this may not be possible. However, sometimes a faulty iPhone still gives you access to the Control Center. Touch the Airplane Mode icon and quietly perform a hard reset.