Why is my new iPhone 16 not turning on?

I don’t know what “side button tricks” you tried or how you tried them. The "Up, Down, Side" instructions require some precision:

• Press and quickly release VOLUME UP

     then

• Press and quickly release VOLUME DOWN

     then

• Hold the SIDE button until an Apple logo appears (15-30 seconds), ignoring "slide to power off" if it appears

The operative word here is QUICKLY; and try it a couple of times, the timing is a little tricky. If done correctly this will always work unless the phone has a hardware problem. 

The question was why this happens. The answer was how to fix it. The fix eventually works, but I still don't know why this happens. Is there something wrong with turning off the phone to charge it? Does that violate some design assumption?

While it is called an iPhone, it is actually a very powerful pocket-sized computer that can incidentally make phone calls. And like all computers, it will sometimes crash. To minimize the probability of that happening it may pay to restart it occasionally→Restart your iPhone - Apple Support

It is happening to me. What did you do? I bought in Metro PC

In the US you can turn off all government alerts in Settings/Notifications, scroll to the bottom to Government Alerts. However, I haven’t received any such alerts in over a year.

Then you haven’t set up DND correctly. You can program it so you won’t get any calls, texts or notifications.

Focus and Do Not Disturb setup has been made much more flexible, but this has come at the cost of much more complication. To get it working again, do these steps ONCE:

• Tap Settings
• Tap Focus
• Tap on any Focus settings that you will never use and remove them (you can add them back later if you change your mind, and even create new, custom ones)
• Tap Do Not Disturb
• Tap People
• Tap Allow Notifications From
• If anyone is listed who should not call you when DND is on delete them; if you don’t want any calls from anyone, any time, delete all people
• Tap the dropdown next to Allow Calls From and choose Allowed People Only
• Optionally, tap on Apps, then Allow Notifications From and don’t add any apps.

All of the above is a one-time setup. After that, turn DND on or off with a quick tap on the Control Center DND button. You can optionally set one or more schedules by going to:

Settings/Focus/Do Not Disturb/Set a Schedule.

There are many other features, but these instructions put it back to the way it worked in simpler days. Over the years Apple has had a steady stream of requests for DND enhancements, and they seem to have incorporated all of them.

Randysea wrote:

Why is that, Lawrence? I thought it was a good idea to turn it fully off at least once a day. Overnight seems like a good time. I keep it near my bed but turned off because I don't want it to ring or vibrate if someone calls in the middle of the night. In an emergency, I'd be reached on my landline. But I also want the mobile handy if I need it for some reason.

I don’t know where you heard that, but it is wrong. You should essentially never turn off an iPhone. Restart it once a week or so. Charge it overnight, powered on, and if you enable automatic backups it will back up to iCloud every night.

If you don’t want to be disturbed during the night use the Do Not Disturb function (Settings/Focus/Do Not Disturb).

I have DND set up correctly. Only my wife and son can call me at night. There is no option to block police emergency alerts, e.g., Blue Alert or Amber Alert. The only way I know to block those is to have the phone powered off.

There are 91 "me too's" to the OP and probably tens of thousands of others with the same problem. It's now happened to me twice.

Is this a bug inherent to iPhone 16s or a random defect so I should I try to send the phone back under AppleCare?

Thank you

Thank you

Thank you !

But I must say, after having iPhones going back to the 4, I have never had this happening before. A bit worrisome, with my 1 week old 16 Pro.

I plugged it into a charger last night and then shut it off. Unplugged it very early this morning. When I got up a few hours later, it was dead.

I've used this charger for more than year with iphone 13. No problems.

Thanks, I found what I need now that I have upgraded from a true dinosaur to a new iPhone. The very last setting should do it - I need to turn off "Always Play Sound" (don't allow alerts when the phone is in silent mode). That should allow emergency alerts when I am using the phone but silence them at night. Of course, that will also silence tornado alerts at night... but we watch the weather and would be awake if there is severe weather nearby.

As you say, Lawrence, "Focus and Do Not Disturb setup has been made much more flexible, but this has come at the cost of much more complication."

I help several older or non-techie people manage their phones. If they want to be certain of peace at night, they simply turn their phones off and back on in the morning.

I could try telling these people: "Swipe down to see the control panel, look for the half moon in the Focus area, tap it, and you will see Do Not Disturb. This means your phone won't ring. Then in the morning, when you want your phone to ring again, swipe down to see the control panel, look for the half moon where it says Do Not Disturb, tap it, and you will see Focus. The word 'Focus' means your phone will ring."

I can assure most of these people would rather just turn their phones off and on. Plus, this will meet the NSA recommendation of turning mobile phones off at least once a week for security reasons without having to explain to them why they should do this.

Even for myself, I couldn't use a dnd schedule. I never go to bed or get up the same time two days in a row. I'd rather turn the phone off and on, too.

Randysea wrote:

There are 91 "me too's" to the OP and probably tens of thousands of others with the same problem. It's now happened to me twice.

Is this a bug inherent to iPhone 16s or a random defect so I should I try to send the phone back under AppleCare?

There are also 100 million who haven’t reported this problem.

Have you been charging overnight, every night, as recommended by Apple?

Science-Curmudgeon wrote:

The issue occurred the first night after purchase. There were a bunch of patches that loaded in quick succession after I got the phone home.

There have NEVER been “patches” to any iPhone (or any other Apple product). Any time iOS is updated the complete firmware is updated, never patched.

If you got a new phone that was from an earlier production run it may have had an early build of iOS 18. When you first turned the phone on it might have updated to a later build of iOS 18; that version was released on September 16, 2024.

On October 3, 2024 an update to iOS 8.0.1 was issued to fix two potential vulnerabilitities:

• Impact: Audio messages in Messages may be able to capture a few seconds of audio before the microphone indicator is activated
• Impact: A user's saved passwords may be read aloud by VoiceOver

On October 28, iOS 18.1 was released that added some features and fixed some potential vulnerabilities→About the security content of iOS 18.1 and iPadOS 18.1 - Apple Support

On November 19, 18.1.1 was released to fix vulnerabilities→About the security content of iOS 18.1.1 and iPadOS 18.1.1 - Apple Support

On December 11 18.2 was released to add Apple Intelligence to iPhones that can support it→About the security content of iOS 18.2 and iPadOS 18.2 - Apple Support

None of these were a “bunch of patches loaded in quick succession” There have been only 4 widely spaced updates since the initial release in September.

If you are running a beta (a bad idea for your primary communication device) you will get very frequent updates, as bugs are reported and fixed. 18.1 is NOT the fully updated release. 18.2 is current for ALL models that can support it (iPhone XR, iPhone SE 3rd edition, iPhone 11 and everything after it). And there are beta versions higher than 18.2. If your phone isn’t offering to update to 18.2 when you go to Settings/General/Software Update something is very seriously wrong with it. That is what you need to get fixed, it can explain all of your issues.