iPhone 6 screen freezes after iOS 10.3.1 update

I think it was Einstein who said something like, "no amount of experimentation can prove me right, but a single experiment can prove me wrong". Keep this in mind.

So on the 3rd party screen hypothesis. False. My iPhone 6 is original, no repairs, purchased from Verizon. It has screen freezes and other weird screen behavior. Intermittently. A single "experiment" (or contrary fact) proves the hypothesis that third party hardware is the single and only cause of the problem is FALSE. (Note that it does not prove that the hypothesis that Apple wrote 3rd party hardware check code and botched it is false -- aka a bug).

Other hypothesis that are now proven false:

DFU restore fixes it -- implying it was a bug in the patch. It does not fix it. At least not permanently.

Cleaning the screen (laughable).

Restarting the phone. (called soft reset I think).

And a number of others people have listed.

Here's one I could use your help on: do any of you NOT have any 32 bit apps but are having screen freeze and other problems? I ask, because I have one -- a password app that I will delete once I've transfered 200+ passwords to a replacement app. But! If there is just a single one of you that does not have ANY 32 bit apps and yet has the problem, this hypothesis goes on the list as not a cause.

How to check for 32 bit apps? Settings. General. About. Applications. Screen on mine at this point says "App Compatibility" at the top. And has a paragraph that says "These apps may slow down your iPhone and will not work with future versions of iOS if they are not updated. ....." And it shows my password app.

I don't know what it looks like for somebody that does not have any 32 bit apps.

It's been 2 hours and I haven't experienced any of the weirdness since I deleted the three apps I had. Of course, that's not conclusive, but it's a start. I just checked with my husband who has not had problems with his 6 Plus and he *doesn't* have any 32 bit apps. So - checks out so far.

Maybe I found solution. I have 6 plus, after 10.3.1 update phone started bugging: touchscreen stopped working, phone freezed time to time. Update 10.3.2 do not helped. I also had icloud full or mostly full. After allocating about 400 Mgb free space in the icloud, the phone started working normal again. In a week I had no problems. Hope it helps! ;)

So, after about 20 hours, the 5s has had two touchscreen interruption issues today. Once in the late morning and then again a few minutes ago.

Very disappointing.

P.S. I have lots of free space in my ICloud.

So 32 bit apps are not sounding like a cause. Mine still has them and it has been acting mostly good for two days. Others are reporting eliminating them doesn't fix it. (although my plan was more drasitic -- eliminate them, then do a DFU restore to fix all the files that may be screwed up)

Here is a clue that is highly puzzling to me. The phone will be fine or mostly fine for hours or days, then give a lot of grief in one day. Sounds like others have the same thing. So it causes us to try to correlate it with things and hypothesize causes like if I stand on one foot and pat my head it works, but if I don't it locks up. Obviously hogwash.

The phone is processing instructions a gazillion times a second. What would cause it to be "funny" only a small fraction of the time?

I'm imagining my coding days and that the main line of code is something like this:

1. Poll cell tower

2. Check for incoming signal

3. Check for data

4. Check for this

5. Check for that

And somewhere in there:

Check if screen input circuits are registering a voltage (or digital) change, indicating user input.

This user input leads to new lines of code, but the main line "interrupts" because it is higher priority. So sometimes while we are trying to do something, the phone pops out of accepting user input briefly (jumpy behavior) or for a long time (unresponsive screen) BECAUSE IT IS BUSY DOING SOMETHING ELSE!!!??!?!?!?! When running normally the processor is capable of jumping in and out of subroutines so fast, we notice none of the work it's doing in the background.

What is making it so busy? And what would only do it once in a while at seemingly random intervals (it can't be random -- computers don't do random)?

I'm at a loss to figure it out. I just wish we could get acknowledgement that Apple knows there is a bug and is working on it. I haven't called them I admit -- not sure what they'd say since my phone is 23 months old.

Hello again I think I've found a potential workaround courtesy of some Spanish chap.

The only problem is it will turn your phone into a dumb phone depending on what your using it for. Go on settings safari and disable JavaScript this seems to help and il be re disabling it after sending this comment. Also disable all apps/ phone add ons you can manage without basically anything you don't need that might slow the processor down. For example weather widget, or, background apps, analytics, stocks, location services.

It seems the problem may be the processors struggling to cope a bit like the good old days. Where the school computers couldn't receive the mouse commands, and would freeze up after clicking too many things. Even moving the mouse was frowned upon before the loading screen was finished as it supposedly caused it to slowdown.

I cant see what other issues there could be as it's not related to non official screens etc or one thing or the other previously mentioned. Perhaps it's just apple trying to budge people onto the iPhone 7,8 a bit like the perfectly good pcs that got rendered useless by windows vista back in the mid 2000s. I expect this is Apple trying to kill off the old phone market.

Many thanks for your contributions one and all as a lot of theories have been debunked. So we all know it's not various things thanks to user feedback and im grateful it's saved me throwing away perfectly good hardware in this case iPhone 5s.

After Some frustrating weeks of trying several tips and tricks in this topic. I decided to go to my service provider in the Netherlands for a repair. They registered it as a touchscreen issue, a few days later I got the message that my phone was ready for pick-up. They didnt fix my phone but gave me an entirely new phone (for free) because it was cheaper than fixing my phone. Diagnostics probably showed many more than replacing a screen was needed.

Problems are over now. If your phone

One last suggestion maybe your all using unofficial charger or maybe the phones are getting too hot. It might that the processor is trying to reduce the temperature by slowing down, therefore causing the touchscreen issues. I've started using an official iPhone 4 charger and the phone now seems fine and it's been a few hours. Then again this problem is temperamental so it may be reappear but fingers crossed.

My screen used to get freezed after 10.3 update but locking and unlocking the phone I could solve the problem.

After the last update, the screen freezes and gets crazy opening apps and typing automatically. Switching off the phone, doesn't solve the issue and I also have problems with the battery percentage.

Still in warranty but it has a small bump on the side, and Apple argues that the phone doesn't work because of the bump and that the solution is to change the screen; however, they do not guarantee the problem to be solved.

I tried everything. What do you recommend?

Nope! This thread is the LUCKY few that had mostly working phones before 10.3.1. And all these phones immediately started acting this way after 10.3.1 was installed. Nice try though. You kinda sound like an Apple employee being paid to figure this out... still waiting on the actual solution.

Here's one, let us re install 10.3.0!!! Problem solved. I promise I'll buy an iPhone 8.

Also experiencing this on three iPhone 5S's after updating to iOS 10.3.2.

I took the first phone to the Apple Store and they replaced it. The same problem occurred on the new phone. I updated a third phone to iOS 10.3.2 and it began occurring within 48 hours on the updated phone. This suggests it's a problem with the iOS update, although I suppose it could be carrier-related (AT&T on all three phones).

Anyone experiencing this issue on other networks?

I have T-Mobile. Happens on my 6s Plus, but not on my husband's 6 Plus. I have updated to 10.3.2 and still happens from time to time but not as frequently as the first couple of weeks.

No issue with my iPad Pro which also is on T-Mobile.

The fact it's happening with some people's new "older" phones seems to rule out that it's something that happened to the phone itself. You aren't the first person to mention it happening on a new phone :/

I don't have a fix but I was in T-Mobile the other day making a change to my plan and the sales person was trying to do something on my iPhone 6s Plus which has had this problem since late April/10.3.1, and she said "What's wrong with your phone?" I said it'd been like this since the 10.3.1 update and many people online have been complaining about it, so I'm not alone. She said it was too frustrating to deal with (I was laughing because I'd almost gotten used to it!) and said my phone was under warranty and it'd cost me $5 to get a new one. So I gave in. I don't seem to be having the problem so far - just all the other annoying setting up things on a different phone. I guess the thinking from me at this point is, if you have a warranty you can use, might be worth getting your phone replaced. I never saw any visible damage to my phone so I don't know that anything was wrong with it and have read that others still had the same problem after they got a new phone but I do not appear to. So, the $5 was worth it for me.

Unfortunately nothing I have tried has fixed the issue completely and I've now had to call it a day with the iPhone 5s. Now using an as good as new SE so hopefully this issue won't reappear. Shame no answer could be found by now, but thanks to all for contributing any ideas that might have helped.

Hi Did you have any luck? I am having the same problem? I have reset my phone to factory setting 3 times and have reset and rrestored in DFU mode. Screen still freezes has anyone had any luck fixing this issue? So annoying

Cheers

Julian