I recently had a customer bring in an Applie iPhone 5c smart phone with not only a broken screen but also a disabled device. I am going to describe how to perform a factory reset using recovery mode. You can possibly gain access to your Apple iPhone 5c smart phone again with these instructions.
You will need either a personal computer with the most recent version of Apple iTunes or an Apple Macintosh computer running the most current version of Apple iTunes software. You will want to open up Apple iTunes and then connect your universal serial bus cable to your Apple iPhone 5c smart phone and computer. If you have an Apple iCloud locked iPhone, this will not fix that connundrum.
First you want to hold down the top wake/sleep power button and home button at the very same time. You will want to keep holding down both buttons even while you see the Apple logo display on screen. You will eventually see an Apple iTunes logo with an arrow pointing from a cable graphic.
This means that the Apple iTunes software has detected your Apple iPhone 5c smartphone. A popup window will prompt you to either update your device or restore your device. Also, Apple iTunes will show a screen with your iPhone devices’ serial number and “iPhone Recovery Mode”.
You can select “Update” but most likely, you will need to select “Restore”. Caveat emptor, the restore option will wipe all data off of your Apple iPhone 5c smart phone. That update option will just update the version of Apple iphone operating system running on your Apple iPhone.
You might be able to access your Apple iPhone once again by choosing either option. If your Apple iPhone 5c smart phone is iCloud locked then this solution will not work. You would need to take your device to Apple support and provide proof of ownership.
This tutorial might be productive if for whatever reason you want to restore your Apple iPhone 5c smart phone back to factory. Perhaps an update caused your device to no longer work, or it is not working smoothly anymore. At the very least you know how to restore your device back to factory settings now.
Also, you learned how to update your Apple iPhone 5c smart phone with Apple iTunes software.