How To Use Recovery Mode and Safe Mode on iPhone 6

Many users have had issues when trying to update their iPhone 6 to the newest firmware.  This can be for several reasons we will discuss in a different post but for now I will share a couple things you need to understand when updating firmware regardless of the iOS device.

There may come a time when your computer and/or iTunes doesn’t recognize your device,  You may also see the Apple logo on the screen for several minutes with no progress bar, or you see the connect to iTunes screen.  These are three giveaways for needing to use Recovery Mode to get your device up and running properly again.  Below we are going to share the steps you need to follow to enter Recovery Mode in order to update the devices firmware.

How to Enter Recovery Mode on iOS Device

1. Turn the device off by holding down the power button until the power off slider appears on the screen.  Swipe the slider to the right to power off the device.
2. Once the device has been powered off plug it into the computer with iTunes using the supplied USB cord.
3. Be sure to Hold down the Home Button on your device as you connect the USB cable to the computer.  until you see the connect to iTunes Screen as shown below.

4.   Once you see the Connect to iTunes Screen appear you can release holding down the Home button.  For              some reason if you don’t see the Connect to iTunes Screen appear repeat steps 1 through 3 over.
When your device is connected, iTunes will open.  You will see a message saying that iTunes has detected an iPhone, iPod, or iPad.  This is a good thing.  You will use iTunes to Restore the device.  Restoring in Recovery Mode will erase your device.  If you have backup from previously syncing with iTunes or iCloud you may be able to restore from your earlier backup.

How to Enter Safe Mode on iOS device

Safe Mode is a way Apple has helped upkeep from destroying our devices.  When iOS devices first released around 2007 it was possible to install bad tweaks or themes that would damage the internal software so badly it was called “Bricking” the device.  This actually meant the device was no longer usable in any way other than as a paper weight or brick, hence the term “Brick”.  Now that’s not the case.  We can now have our devices thrown into a “Safe Mode” which something like a crash cycle for it.  This is where the substrate is disabled which includes all the extensions such as themes, tweaks but allowing you access to them for removing any unwanted or problematic tweaks or themes to uninstall the packages which could have caused the crash.

“The Cydia Substrate provides a simple platform (one integrated with Cydia) for deploying code that gets inserted into graphical applications.” So when things crash, the substrate is able to handle errors and provide fallback support, known as Safe Mode.
Normally bad tweaks that cause issues will start immediately.  So all you need to do is remove the last tweak you installed to resolve most of the problems.
Manually Entering Safe Mode

1.   Power off the device completely
2.   Once the device has been turned off completely, power it back on holding down the power button.
3.   When the iOS device lights up hold down the up volume button until you see the Apple logo appear.
4.   When the iOS device is unlocked it will be in Safe Mode.  This will allow the user time to remove any bad tweaks or themes.

Manually Exiting Safe Mode

Hard Restart iOS Device will disable Safe Mode
Hard Restart hold power and home button until device turns off completely and restarts.  All this will occur while you hold down power and home together.  Also, you will ignore the slide to unlock that appears on the screen a few seconds after you start this process.