Is my iPhone dead?

[Wingsley]

Just this past spring, I bought a brand-new iPhone SE (3rd generation) direct from Apple with AppleCare.

Just before bed, I decided to plug-in my iPhone for recharging overnight. When I plugged it in, nothing happened. It didn’t respond. I tried to wake it. I could not get it to do anything. The iPhone is dead as a doornail. I had a normal charge earlier this evening, has not been dropped, and was working fine.

???

There are no Apple stores within driving range.

 

[DaveS86]

Have you given it a reset?

 

[ian87w]

I would follow these troubleshooting steps first.

If your iPhone won't turn on or is frozen – Apple Support (UK)

If your iPhone has a frozen screen or becomes stuck, find out what to do.

support.apple.com

 

[Wingsley]

Have you given it a reset?

What does that mean?

 

[BugeyeSTI]

What does that mean?

How to factory reset your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support

Learn how to securely erase information from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch and restore your device to factory settings.

support.apple.com

 

[Wingsley]

I would follow these troubleshooting steps first.

If your iPhone won't turn on or is frozen – Apple Support (UK)

If your iPhone has a frozen screen or becomes stuck, find out what to do.

support.apple.com

I attempted the steps at the above Apple page. My iPhone did not respond. I appears to be dead as a doornail.

 

[PegasusTenma]

I had a similar issue with an iPad. Plug it in again, at least for 8 hours straight. That was the recommendation from Apple back then and it worked for me.

 

[JerseyDoug]

Do you have a different cable/charger you can try? Cable have been known to fail. Not often, but it does happen.

 

[Wingsley]

I got on the phone with Apple technical support yesterday afternoon and we discussed the iPhone problem. At that point, the iPhone was still a brick.

We reviewed my various options to have the phone returned via AppleCare. I asked the lady if there was a way I could extract my information off of the iPhone before returning it. We agreed that we would try to experiment with this. I plugged the iPhone into my M1 Mac mini via USB-C to lightning cable.

She then coached me on how to do a forced restart of the iPhone. Apparently it is very tricky the way you have to handle the iPhone's buttons. The forced restart worked, miracle of miracles! The iPhone hummed right back up again, and I made a backup of it, and now the iPhone works just fine.