How to Backup iPhone with Broken Touch Screen

Question

How to Backup iPhone with Broken Touch Screen

I am sharing my experience in successfully backing up my wife's iPhone 6 to iTunes after she dropped it in the toilet and the touch screen stopped working. Everything else on the phone was working, except WiFi would not initially connect. I received help from this post: Re: how to backup iphone with broken touch screen

Original Problem: Could not backup iPhone because touch screen was broken and iTunes was asking to trust computer (we were on vacation and had my laptop, but not hers, and we had never done a backup to mine. We did not pay for extra storage on iCloud. I wanted to create a backup that we could use as a restore when the new phone arrived.

Solution:

1. Ordered a Lightning connector keyboard Amazon.com: Apple MFI Certified 8-pin iPad Wired Keyboard Lightning Connector for iPad 4, Air, Air 2, Mini, Mini with Re… and a Bluetooth keyboard https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NM65VV2/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UT F8&psc=1

I will explain why two keyboards and also an option for only using the USB keyboard.

2. Connected Lightning keyboard to iPhone and entered passcode and the phone immediately unlocked! It also immediately connected to WiFi (it had been on the network before). At this point, I could have used the keyboard to navigate to iCloud (see #3 activate Voice Over with Siri), paid for additional storage, and synced the phone to make a backup on iCloud. However, I did not want to wait for as long as that would take.

3. Put the iPhone in "Voice Over" mode by holding down the home key to activate Siri (this is why Wifi was so important as Siri would not activate without Internet).

4. Used the Lightning keyboard to pair the iPhone to the Bluetooth keyboard. The reason for this is that I still needed to connect the phone to the laptop to backup to iTunes. If I only used the Lightning keyboard, as soon as I unplugged it to plug the phone into the laptop, I would have no way to click "Trust Computer". If you already did a backup then the computer should already be trusted and you can stop after unlocking the phone with the Lightning keyboard.

Note: Controlling the phone using the keyboards was incredibly confusing as the arrow keys did not work as they should have. I don't remember the details, but I think I had to hold down shift or control while using the arrow keys. Each keyboard used a different combination to control navigation. I practiced on my working iPhone until I figured out how to navigate, particularly how to pair via Bluetooth. On the broken phone, this was much harder because the screen would change colors, lines would go in and out, so I needed to already how to navigate and where to go.

5. After making sure the Bluetooth keyboard was working with the phone, disconnected the Lightning keyboard, and connected the phone to the laptop. Itunes immediately opened and recognized the phone. In iTunes, selected Backup. Trust Computer then popped up on the phone. Used the Bluetooth keyboard to select Yes (or Trust - whatever it is I can't remember right now) and it worked! iTunes backed up the phone! After the backup completed, I did a software update on the phone to the newest version of iOS. This was very important later because the new iPhone at first said it could not be restored because the restore was defective or incompatible. I just updated the new phone's version of iOS following these instructions: Restoring from an iTunes or iCloud backup when a later version of iOS is required - Apple Support

After all of that, we now pay for iCloud storage!

I hope this helps someone!

Posted on Sep 15, 2017 8:28 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Julian Daniel

Level 1

96 points

Dec 14, 2017 4:06 PM in response to ShimonElTigre

I just dealt with exactly this situation - a badly broken iPhone screen with vital data on it that had never been backed up/synced by the end user. I didn't care about the phone - just the data.

I took it to a screen repair shop, but they said that the replacement displays they tried still didn't work, and that it was a problem with the motherboard. I still had a cracked display that showed what I was doing - it just didn't respond to anything.

I tried both the Apple Lightning USB adapter (which didn't work with my keyboard since they drew too much power, though I could connect to a powered USB hub and use the keyboard) and the Apple Lightning USB3 adapter (which has a female lightning connector that I hoped to sync with...sadly, it's power-only, not sync), but discovered the maddening fact that while I could now enter the unlock code on the external keyboard, I couldn't "Trust" the computer I wanted to back up to so I could recover the data - I could either plug in a computer or a keyboard, but not both. Lightning Y connectors exist, but apparently they only support sync+audio, not sync+keyboard.

Then I discovered this thread and your suggestion to turn on VoiceOver using Siri - now I was able to put a Bluetooth keyboard in pairing mode and using VoiceOver, control-arrow (or shift-arrow or option-arrow - I never figured out which worked) until I was sitting on top of the keyboard to pair, then up-down arrow simultaneously to "tap".

Now that the Bluetooth keyboard was paired, I could hook up a sync cable and attempt to Trust the computer...except when the dialog box came up to Trust the computer, I heard VoiceOver announce the box and then say "navigation off"...ARGH! I couldn't use the keys to navigate anymore and select the Trust button!

I though I'd see if Siri could help turn it back on again, and noticed that when I long-pressed the home button to get Siri I got "navigation on" (YAY!).

Finally, I was able to press that Trust button and start the backup process...and now the vital data is saved and I can throw out this mutilated phone.

Just wanted to share, since it seems this is a common problem, but not many people have found a solution.

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