Locked out of your iPhone?

How to get back into your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad.

Steve Smith, host of your Technology Questions Answered, explains an easy method to get back into your favourite iOS device like the iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad.

Episode #1-48 released on August 28, 2011

Watch on Youtube

What does the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad all have in common? All allow for password restrictions, have lock out features, and they all have a home button.

Today, how about we unlock some of your iOS devices before you feel the need to bring it to the Apple store. No offense, I know they can do their job, but you can do this with iTunes for free.

There is two ways of doing this. The first requires that you still have access to the original computer you sync with. Plug it in, without pressing any special buttons, you don't have to. Let iTunes detect your iOS device. When its loaded into iTunes, click the name of your device, on the summary page you will click the button restore. It will bring you iOS device back to factory condition, reload the data backed up, and effectively remove the password. This works a lot better if you don't completely lock yourself out of your phone.

For tougher cases, you will need to force iTunes to enter a recovery mode with the recovery boot loader driver. You see this whenever you upgrade your iOS device. This is not nearly as hard as anyone wants you to believe. You don't have to press the power button and home button at the same. Simply hold the power button long enough to shut off the device, as you'd normally do. Then holding the home button, plug your iOS into your computer, wait for iTunes to load, then let it load the recovery boot loader. At this point, you can let go of the home button, iTunes will do the rest of the work, you simply need to answer the few questions on the screen. If you connected to a computer that didn't have your backups, it will simply erase your iOS device. If your connected to your computer, it will load the last backup stored on the computer. You can also load your latest backup once you connect to your computer later on, as well.

Here is a suggestion for anyone with an iOS device, sync it often to your computer. At least once every few days to maintain an up to date backup of all your data on your device. This will make it possible to recover your device to the latest configuration, but as a bonus, if your device becomes damaged, you can buy a new iOS device and load the latest backup on that one.

Note : holding the power and home button simply resets your device.

Next week, I'll help you pick out a new browser and explain a bit about each one.

Host : Steve Smith | Music : Jonny Lee Hart | Editor : Steve Smith | Producer : Zed Axis Productions

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