Have you installed iOS 16 beta on your iPhone? And now you’re facing touch screen issues? There can be many reasons for this, as Apple might have made some underlying changes that could bork the touchscreen on your iPhone. Nonetheless, here are some general tips, tricks, and solutions you can follow to fix touch screen issues on your iPhone running iOS 16.
Rarely, an iPhone touch screen stops working or becomes unresponsive to touch. It’s obvious when this happens, you’ll touch the screen and nothing happens, swipes will be ignored, taps don’t do anything, and other touch on the screen doesn’t register any behavior. It’s clearly annoying if the iPhone screen is no longer working and not responding to touch, and it’s not subtle.
Some common touch screen related issues that many iPhone users are reporting after installing iOS 16 beta include:
- iPhone Screen not working on iPhone.
- The touch screen becomes unresponsive while receiving calls.
- iPhone Touch Screen not working while swiping or tapping.
Why is iPhone touchscreen not working in iOS 16?
There are many reasons why you could be having iOS 16 touch screen issues. Here are some of the most common ones.
- Dust or debris on your screen
- Moisture on your hands
- Obstruction from your case or screen protector
- Major temperature changes
- An outdated iOS 16 beta
- Interference from your charger or other accessories.
If your iPhone touch screen is not working after iOS 16 update, read on for a helpful series of troubleshooting steps that may help to fix the problem.
How to Troubleshoot an Unresponsive iOS 16 Touch Screen
We’ve got several steps to troubleshooting an unresponsive touch screen on an iPhone running iOS 16, if your iPhone is not responding well to touch and the screen seemingly is not working as well as it should with touch input, follow along and you should be able to remedy the issue. I just experienced this problem myself and so this is the set of steps I used to troubleshoot the issue, for my specific situation the iPhone just needed to be hard rebooted and some storage freed up for the touch screen to work as expected again.
1: Clean Your Screen, And Your Fingers
The first thing you’ll want to do to resolve the iOS 16 touchscreen not working issue is to clean off your iPhone screen, as well as your fingers (or other input appendage or device). If you have a case or a thick third party screen protector on the iPhone, you’ll want to remove those as you troubleshoot this as well.
Give your iPhone screen a good look in bright direct lighting and tilt it around a bit to reveal any obvious gunk, oil, residues, liquids, moistures, dried crust or food, or anything else that may be interfering in the screen. In the sunnier weather, sunscreen is another common thing that can get on a screen and make the iOS 16 touch screen unresponsive or erroneously responsive. You’ll want to make sure the iPhone screen is clean and clear of anything that can interfere with the ability to detect touch properly. Wiping it down with a soft cotton cloth is often sufficient to remove anything from the iPhone displays touch screen, but you may need to use a slightly damp (and I do mean slightly, never enough moisture to drip) cloth to wipe the screen free.
As for your fingers, a stylus, or other input appendages, just make sure they’re clean and dry. Wash your hands or your fingers if in doubt and if you have a bunch of gunk on them. Unusually dry skin or callouses generally don’t matter and should not cause any issue with the touch screen, though if your hands are wet that may cause issues.
Just make sure the screen is clean, and that your hands are clean and dry.
2: Perform a Hard Reboot
Often times simply restarting the iOS 16 device will fix the unresponsive touch screen, but a hard reboot is often easier even if it’s a bit more forceful.
Hard rebooting is easy, here’s how to do it:
- Press Volume Up and release.
- Press Volume Down and release.
- Hold the Power Button for about 5-10 seconds until you see the Apple logo
When the iPhone boots back up, the touch screen should work just fine again if it’s a simple software issue like a bug or a software freeze with iOS 16 or an app.
From personal anecdotal experience, my iPhone 8 Plus screen can sometimes become totally unresponsive to touch for a while, and a hard reboot always fixes it.
3: Delete and Update / Reinstall the Problematic App
Sometimes the iOS 16 touch screen is unresponsive in just one particular app. If this is the case, the problem is likely that app and not the iPhone touch screen at all, but since the app is open at the time the app stops responding as it “freezes”. A frozen app will often not respond to any touch screen input at all, but swiping up from the bottom of the screen will often exit the app and go back to the Home Screen in these scenarios.
If the touch screen is not working in a given app, you’ll want to update it first. Open the App Store and check to see if updates are available for the app in question, if an update is available install it.
If there is still a problem with the iOS 16 touch screen not working in a specific app after you have updated that app, you can also delete the app, and then reinstall the problematic app. Relaunch it again to see if it works as expected. If it still fails, the app could have a bug that needs to be addressed. If the touch screen works with every other app except for the problematic one, that particular app is likely the problem and it’s probably nothing to do with the screen or iPhone at all.
4: Free up iOS Storage
When an iOS 16 device has zero storage available, things tend to go haywire in general, and that can include experiencing an unresponsive touch screen.
Make sure your iPhone has storage available on the device. You can check this in Settings > General > iPhone Storage. Aim to have at least a few hundred MB available if not a few GB, as iOS really starts underperforming with less space available.
Deleting unused apps is an easy way to recover some storage space.
I have noticed this is particularly true with modern versions of iOS when an iPhone is totally full and has 0 bytes of storage remaining, in which case many apps become unresponsive as does the touch screen. Sometimes even the touch screen may be unresponsive and not work at all for a while on a totally full iPhone, until whatever software cache clearing mechanisms complete. This is often easily reproducible too; just fill up an iPhone so that it has zero bytes remaining, and then start trying to use apps that rely on a lot of caching like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Spotify, etc, once those app caches build up you will likely notice the touch screen becomes unresponsive for short periods of time as iOS struggles to deal with having zero storage available. In such a case, just free up some space, then reboot the iPhone, it should work again.
5: Is the iPhone Touch Screen Cracked? Is the iPhone Touch Screen Damaged? Was the iPhone damaged or dropped?
This is probably obvious from the get-go, but if the iOS 16 device touch screen is cracked it can become unresponsive, partially unresponsive, or just not work at all. Likewise if the iPhone is damaged, it may not work at all, or the touch screen may not work reliably.
Water damage can also ruin an iPhone touch screen, or the entire phone as well.
If an iPhone has been dropped, it’s also possible that internal components came loose, which may cause the touch screen to not be working.
If the iPhone has obvious visible damage and the iOS 16 touch screen is not working, the damage is likely to be the cause. In such a situation, take the iPhone to an authorized Apple repair center or an Apple store and have them give it a look.
6. Avoid extreme temperatures
iOS doesn’t perform well when it’s really hot or freezing cold. In fact, your device may display a warning if its temperature rises beyond a certain level. You won’t be able to use it until it cools down, so find a place for it to do so.
7. Install the latest iOS 16 beta
Running an outdated iOS 16 beta could cause your touch screen to not work properly. To download the latest version of iOS: go to Settings > General > Software Update. If it says there’s an update available, follow the prompts to download and install it.
8. Disconnect all accessories
Unplug any headphone or Lightning cables from your iOS 16 device. If your screen begins working again, you may have a faulty cable, charger, or outlet.
9. Remove your iPhone case and screen protector
Screen protectors—especially if they’re cracked or peeling—can cause your iOS 16 device touch screen to not work in some areas. Try taking any protective materials off your device to see if that solves your problem.
10: iOS 16 touch screen still not working? Time for more serious measures
If the iOS 16 touch screen is still not working at all, you may want to revert back to iOS 15.
iOS 16 touch screen STILL not working? Contact Professional Help
If all above troubleshooting methods did not fix iOS 16 touchscreen not working issue, it’s time to contact Apple support, go to an Apple Store, or visit an Apple authorized repair center. Have them inspect the iPhone touch screen to figure out what’s wrong with it, it may need a repair. It may be a hardware problem that is unseen, or it could be some other issue that you overlooked.
–
Did these troubleshooting tips fix the iOS 16 touch screen not working issue? Do you have any tips or tricks to resolving problems with an unresponsive or non-working touch screen on iPhone running iOS 16? Let us know in the comments section below.
See also: Top 10 Ways to Fix iPhone Slow After iOS 16 Update
Submit a comment