Filed under: How-tos, iPhone, iPhone 101
iPhone 101: Reboot your iPhone for better gaming
One of the biggest comments on the recent SimCity announcement for the iPhone, other than being able to locate the SimCity International (link goes to the U.K. iTunes store) version of the game, was complaints that the game was crashing for some people.
This is not a new issue for graphically intense games for the iPhone and one of the solutions for solving this is very easy: Before playing your new game, reboot the iPhone.
Here's how to do it.
Update: As has been pointed out in the comments, a normal shutdown/startup process, or "soft reboot," should work fine: simply hold the power button down for 3 seconds and slide to power down. The "hard reboot" described here should only be used if your iPhone isn't responding to touches or the Home button -- it is not intended as regular maintenance. Thanks to all for the feedback.
[If your phone ever becomes completely unresponsive, you may need to do the 'hard reboot process described next -- but remember this is the equivalent of pulling out the power cord on your computer.] Hold down the Home and the Sleep/Wake buttons until your screen goes black, as shown at right. After a few seconds, you should see a sliding bar for powering off the phone. Ignore it and keep pressing those buttons. After about 20 seconds or so, the screen will go completely black and the silver Apple logo appears.
Once your phone goes through the rebooting process, launch your game. You shouldn't have any further problems with it. One word of warning: Rebooting the iPhone does drain your battery somewhat, so if you're pretty low on power you may find yourself unable to use the phone until after you're recharged it.
I saw this tip posted on the App Store when I was purchasing Scrabble at the end of November and followed the advice and didn't have a single problem with Scrabble on my 1st generation iPhone. I repeated it with SimCity and, again, I'm not having any issues playing the game.
If that doesn't solve your issues, check out this list of iPhone troubleshooting tips.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
vandil said 10:15AM on 12-18-2008
Rebooting is the first troubleshooting step for anything related to computers.
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Glen said 10:16AM on 12-18-2008
This really isn't sound advice and you should correct it. A lot of game developers have taken to putting this message in their applications, but it's equivalent to holding the power switch down on your Mac and can potentially cause data corruption. It should be used only as a last resort if the phone becomes unresponsive. The correct way to reboot your phone gracefully is to hold the power switch down until the slider appears, then slide to power off.
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jax sedrin said 10:19AM on 12-18-2008
I think the author just got the two confused. The "slide to power off" only appears when you hold down *just* the sleep/wake button. Holding both that and the home does a hard reboot.
Berklie said 10:24AM on 12-18-2008
Exactly... I see so many posts incorrectly tell people to use this harsh manner of rebooting one's iPhone. The correct way, as Glen states, is to do a graceful restart one's iPhone by shutting the iPhone down properly (hold power button down, use slider to shut down) and then simply powering it back up.
Brian Arnold said 10:30AM on 12-18-2008
+1 to this post. Doing a hard reboot is unnecessary and not in the best interests of the phone's health.
Hold down the Sleep/Wake button until that "Slide to Power Off" pops - and then use it! You get a spinner for a moment and then it powers down. Hold down Sleep/Wake again for a few seconds, and you get the shiny Apple of happiness, and you'll be back up shortly.
emil said 10:34AM on 12-18-2008
Agreed, this is NOT a very good way to reboot assuming your iPhone is responsive. This is what you do when it's locked up, and is akin to yanking out the power cord or force-quitting an application. A better way is to simply hold down the lock button and let the system power itself off properly. I can't believe game developers recommend this.
As someone who has smart playlists that key on 'last played' and 'last skipped', I hate it when I have to force quit the phone because I lose all of the accumulated ratings, last played, last skipped, and other MP3 metadata since my last sync.
EDIT THIS ARTICLE! BAD INFO!
Joe said 10:21AM on 12-18-2008
I bought SimCity and didn't have any problems playing it for a few hours, but after I synced my phone to the computer, the app just disappeared. Is this an iPhone problem or a SimCity problem?
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Sam said 10:23AM on 12-18-2008
Yeah, don't do a hard reboot, just hold the power button until the "slide to power off" screen pops up.
That said, restarting your iPhone after installing big apps does seem to make a huge difference in app stability for me, and I've made it a habit.
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William said 10:27AM on 12-18-2008
DO NOT DO THIS!!! BAD TUAW!!! BAD!!
This is the equivelent of pulling the power cord on a desktop or holding down power button on portable... this can and WILL EVENTUALLY cause data loss.
Look on apple support pages for the CORRECT INFO TUAW!!
A real reboot of device: Turn it off, turn it back on with sleep wake button ONLY.
PLEASE CORRECT THIS ARTICLE!!
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geodee said 10:29AM on 12-18-2008
I agree with Glen and Sam 100%. This is horrible advice, and not the proper way to reboot the phone. This method should only be used when you have no other option.
Please correct this article.
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Joe V said 10:32AM on 12-18-2008
Oh, so maybe the app disappearing from my phone was actually a TUAW problem... Great.
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James Donevan said 10:37AM on 12-18-2008
This kind of rubbish advice has no place on TUAW. Bloggers should stick to straightforward reporting and leave the technical advice to more experienced writers.
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J.G. said 10:40AM on 12-18-2008
I've been using Mobile Me for years. It has had some kinks and I had syncing trouble with the first few releases of 10.5.x. But despite those I'm a very happy MobileMe user.
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J.G. said 10:42AM on 12-18-2008
Sorry, 1Password auto-submit decided to also post that comment for me.
I mean to add to the chorus, use the proper reboot methods.
William Beem said 11:03AM on 12-18-2008
Rebooting also erases your play history. If you're the kind of geek (as I am) who wants to see the last play date and play count increase when you sync up, you won't get it if you reboot.
Rebooting is NOT the first trouble-shooting step when you have a problem with computers. It doesn't solve the problem. It simply moves it aside to appear again later. Rebooting isn't a fix.
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Fred said 1:48PM on 12-18-2008
Um, actually a proper shut-down and reboot is almost always my first step. I've been doing call-center and desk-side support for 10 years and this solves 60-70% of issues. If the problem recurs than obviously it's a problems that needs to be dealt with, but all computers deserve a reboot at least every couple of days (PCs anyway). Also, remember that holding your home button on an app kills that app and while I don't know for sure, might free up some memory as well.
eugene said 11:03AM on 12-18-2008
By the end of the day I lost my 120,000 city with 700,000 in cash due to a random crash.
So, yes while restarting your phone helps it is not a remedy.
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Martin Lortie said 12:29PM on 12-18-2008
Did you saved you city?
Ben said 11:11AM on 12-18-2008
"I saw this tip posted on the App Store when I was purchasing Scrabble at the end of November and followed the advice and didn't have a single problem with Scrabble on my 1st generation iPhone. I repeated it with SimCity and, again, I'm not having any issues playing the game."
Homer: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a
charm.
Lisa: That's specious reasoning, Dad.
Homer: Thank you, dear.
Lisa: By your logic I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away.
Homer: Oh, how does it work?
Lisa: It doesn't work.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: It's just a stupid rock.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: But I don't see any tigers around, do you?
Homer: Lisa, I want to buy your rock.
Reply
Todd Sieling said 11:27AM on 12-18-2008
Reboot before using an app to get good performance? How very Windows.
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