iPhone stuck on black screen with spinning wheel

Dec 17, 2019

Short version

Problem: iPhone stuck on black screen with spinning wheel
Solution: force restart iPhone

Long story

This morning I wasn't doing anything particular with my iPhone when, out of nowhere, my iPhone got stuck on black screen with spinning wheel.
The device actually responded to commands: the screen would turn on and off with the lateral button, it vibrated when using the mute switch and - most disconcerting - it kept on communicating with the watch, allowing me to receive and answer to messages. It was as if the screen was stuck, while the device beneath it was working as usual.

I looked up on the internet for solutions, but all I could find where terribly written, unnecessarily long articles, or others whose first suggestion was downloading some magical software that would restore the iPhone back to normal. No thanks.
With some patience I read through them and what they ended up saying is that, one first thing to try, is to force restart the iPhone. Actually that's what I kept on trying to do, but I remembered the wrong procedure to do so, i.e. the one that applied to iPhones before the 6/6s versions.

Anyway: I got angry of unnecessarily long pages to find a simple solution in a situation where you need it quickly, and that's why there's a short version up there.

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