Error 53- Back in New Form with iPhone 8?

At one time- up to and including the release of the 6S Plus- it was the case that a broken iPhone home button could be replaced with a third-party aftermarket copy. Granted, the fingerprint recognition would no longer work- since the home button’s secure enclave no longer matched the phone- but you could still otherwise click and use the home button.

Unfortunately, this is no longer with the case with the iPhone 7 onwards.* Around the beginning of 2016, Apple released an iOS update that- without giving their users warning beforehand or the opportunity to stop things- “bricked” iPhones with a third-party replacement home button. Which wasn’t very nice of them, and prompted a backlash from media and customers alike until Apple released a patch that made such phones usable again.

With iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, a damaged home button meant the assistive touch would appear automatically; not as good as the real thing, but functional. However, if the phone was restored, assistive touch was often not turned on. This is obviously a nuisance- well, a major problem!- since you have to press the home button to start things off.

Now that the iPhone 8 is here, it seems that if the home button is missing or not working, all you get is the Apple logo and a constant cycle of reboots. Oddly, though, connect a functional home button- even if it isn’t the one matched to the phone, and it boots fine. Disconnect it and it goes back to not booting. (We’ve confirmed this from personal experience).

Stranger still, if the iPhone 8 is on the setup screen after a restoration, it works fine without a home button being plugged in. Until, that is, you plug in the SIM card- as soon as the phone is successfully activated, power-cycling it without going through the setup means that it once more won’t boot.

So we think it’s pretty clear that Apple is checking the home button during activation, and disabling the phone if it’s not detected in functional order. This is- to us- a somewhat dubious way to recreate a situation similar to the infamous “Error 53”, but without being explicit about it. Only Apple can repair the home button, so of course you’re going to have to bring it to them- though they won’t come out and actually say that.

Disingenuous, as far as we’re concerned.

* To be pedantic, you can buy- and fit- a replacement home button, but only for appearance’s sake- it’ll be entirely non-functional and thus about as much use as a blue M&M in the same situation.

iPhone 8 with broken home button connected gets stuck on Apple logo screen. (Note that flex is hidden underneath).

Same iPhone 8 with mismatched (but working) home button. Because it’s from another phone, clicking it has no effect, but at least you get an assistive touch button.