iphone5s - clicky, noisy home button

I will make an appointment at the genius bar as soon as more users have posted their experience. It's a long drive to the next store. Too long to rely on hope and not having a decent chance of getting a non-clicky phone.

Clucky sound is not a issue

I went to the apple store and talked to the blue shirt people they said that even there's does it but you may get it looked if you want but it would be pointless

I haven't had time to check out the floor models, but I can tell you that after using mine for the last week, the sound is definitely better (quieter). The extreme clicky quality to the sound is no longer there. Of course, it may be that I'm just getting used to it, but I think it is actually better. ;-)

YMMV, of course.

I went to Apple today. The Genius was great as usual.

Even in the crowded store, she heard the clicking of the button as did I a few feet away from her.

She got a new phone for me.

While I can still hear clicking on the new phone, it is quite the opposite of the last phone; the last phone clicked just about every place you pressed the home button. This one, the clicking is more anomalous. Reminds me of my 5 with a little firmer button; the best of both worlds.

I also notice that the travel of the home button is shorter than on the other phone.

And the power button is more recessed on the new phone than the old phone.

That made me think of my 4S ... When I picked it up, the glass had a yellowish tint to it. It was horrid. I went back the next day, showed a Genius and walked out two minutes later with a familiar blue-hued glass. When I read about this online, the answer is that different manufacturers had different tolerances. It sounds like the same thing exists with issues like these buttons.

Very sad as Tim Cook's strength is supposed to be in supply side management. The 4S had the major variations in glass and the same may now be true with the button issues.

This may also be why there was no pre-sale (in addition to driving line hype); there were challenge getting phones from a particular manufacturer.

For those people who said that we are "babies" about the clicking, I can understand why they thought we were crazy if they got a phone that was manufactured to the "better" (right word??) tolerances, standards etc. They probably didn't hear any clicking.

Still a great company, but ... And I bet that the new iPad and newererer versions of iPhones don't have this problem. 🙂

Thanks to everyone for all of their help.

I believe the home button was designed with the fingerprint scanner in mind. If you are clicking the home button and keeping your finger on the button to have your print instantly scanned you will not hear this supposed annoying click. The only thing I see that is annoying in this situation is the fact that this is even conversation worthy.

You believe that the home button was designed with the fingerprint scanner in mind? No! Really! Wow! Not one of us would have guessed. Thanks! You solved everything!

Thanks also for bad guessing about how I use my phone.

Are you that lonely that you have to troll forums where you have no interest? I will see what I can do about getting you some fish as pets to keep you busy. In the meantime, let the communities work to help each other out.

You're funny. So you're going to give me your fish. Awesome!

I went to an Apple store this morning in Melbourne, Australia. The Genius Bar staff was assisting my inquiry regarding with the noisy and stiff button. She however did not offer me any replacement at all due to it was not actually a major problem as the home button worked perfectly fine. It was just the matter of unusual stiff button. I tried myself comparing my 5S with the store's display models. Both basically behave in the same way. I guess it is due to the fact that the installed fingerprint scanner component affecting the user experience. Everyone who is using or about to use 5S should adapt a new "home button" pressing technique I reckon.

"I believe the home button was designed with the fingerprint scanner in mind. If you are clicking the home button and keeping your finger on the button to have your print instantly scanned you will not hear this supposed annoying click."

Yep.

"The only thing I see that is annoying in this situation is the fact that this is even conversation worthy."

Your lack of vision does not limit the scope of this forum.

If Apple had a simple gesture to get to the multitasking bar and to close apps, the need for so much home button activity would be significantly mitigated. It would also be in compliance with the move that Apple stated was important a couple of years ago against use of physical device activation and why gestures like this are present in iPad.

So many miscues on the part of Tim Cook from going in the wrong direction with MORE use of physical activation like the home button to the abomination of AirDrop failure to work with OS X or iPads older the the iPad 4 ... But that's for another thread.

Here, if the home button issue can't be "fixed" physically (which won't happen to 9 million + phones), make a simple gesture in iOS 7.0.3 to get to the multitasking bar and to close apps.

In the meantime, my new 5S seems to continue to perform better than the one I swapped out.

In a very interesting development, AppleCare called me about my home button issue earlier today. This was an unsolicited call from Apple as I had only posted the issue to this community. They told me they read my post and would like to exchange my phone for a new one because they want me to be very satisfied and Apple engineers want to examine my phone, identify any hardware issues and develop a solution.

That is very interesting. I took mine to the Apple store today, and the Genius said he'd never heard of it, but said my button was noticeably loud. They replaced it, but the new one is just as bad (you can't really hear it in a loud store). I give up for now. Let us know if you get one that's any better.

Oh, and interesting to note, my wife has a gold 5s, and the click is consistent and decent sounding. A little louder than the 5, but nowhere near as annoying and loud as my 5S. I tried a handful of the phones at the store, and over half had the annoying mushy inconsistent click mine has.

I have the same issue and it is a very big deal to me as I'm finding it very annoying and not enjoying using my phone nearly as much as I should. That said, I just got back from the Apple store and I tested literally every phone on display and each one of them without exception exhibited the same annoying home button click as my 5S. I then had a Genius Bar employee take my phone into the back room where it was quiet and compare it against three other iPhone 5S's. He came back and said they sounded exactly the same. The funny part was that the employees said they loved the clicking sound - to each his own I guess. At that point he was still willing to exchange it, however it didn't make a lot of sense being that my phone is perfect in every other way and I would risk potentially getting a phone with a real defect. To further validate this, my best friend has an iPhone 5s and it sounds identical to mine. So at this point I'm sad to say it looks like this is something we will all have to learn to live with. And for those who claim their phone is not clicking I suspect it's open to interpretation...

I cringe at the thought of the upcoming iPad, as it will most likely include a Touch ID sensor and have a clicky home button - whereas my iPad 3 is almost dead silent.

I've been having the same issue. So annoying, and it is killing my phone experience; and cannot over look it. I find myself trying to click it on the edge at and angle everytime to avoid the loud "clack" when i release the home button, and get ****** when i hear it. I ordered the phone from ATT web site, so not sure if i have to deal with them or can go to Apple store; anyone know?? I will try to do something; and such a shame since i'm really loving everything else about this phone. I'm coming from a 4s, so it's a big improvement. I have the space grey, and my wife is still waiting on her gold that we ordered at the same time, interested to see if hers will have the same noisy home button, and wish she had it for compairson now. Anyone know what the time frame is to swap out a phone if deemed defective? I'm really hoping to hear of some success from the apple store on this thread. We are coming from iphones, and have ipad and ipad mini, so its not like i'm goingn to forget what a smooth working home button feels and sounds like. I'm so ticked just writing this