Got to friend's house today. Button was difficult to get out without prying it, but out it came. There was a rubber complex or warn section O ring and a strong pliable plastic ring, which was broken. In the middle was a micro switch. It only did what the button caused it to do: bring up a passive screen that on a PC would be the wallpaper. There were tiny symbols including a padlock. The screen did not react to touching.
I rebooted by holding the micro-switch in and pressing the power switch. It took an age, but finally the apple turned to an active screen. I got the reboot idea from a pal who's in her 80's. It occurs to me it's a bit of a complex way to simply restart, so I'm wondering if I've done a compete reset.
Looks okay, and doing a factory reset needs the password. Phew!
The mechanism of force restart will be different for different devices. You would usually use the Home button to restart. However, there are some models that don’t have the Home button —including the popular 2018 iPad Pro. So make sure you note the right way to force restart your iPad.
For devices with Home button:
- Press and hold the Power button and the Home button at the same time
- Wait for the device to reboot and then release the buttons once the Apple logo appears.
Last night, armed with Justin's
settings>accessibility>assistive touch (or something like that).
I arrived knowing it was possible to make a virtual button. It took a while, but seems to work well.
I had to give them a routine to start from cold, and the virtual button is feint in the background. Home, gets us the security code input box.
The machine is a CE 0682 with a ! in a circle. About four years old.
It's frustrating, because the parts seem to be quickly replaceable. If I can't source them I'll botch it somehow. The screen certainly is a pleasure to use after my phone.