You’re holding a glass-and-aluminum slab that won't wake up. It’s frustrating. Honestly, the iPhone 8 was a turning point for Apple—the last flagship with the classic home button—and because of its age, the simple act of figuring out how to turn on iPhone 8 can sometimes be a bit more complex than just hitting a button. Maybe the battery is shot. Maybe the logic board is acting up. Or maybe you're just new to the device and looking for that specific side button.
The Standard Way to Power Up
Let’s start with the basics. Look at the right side of the device. There is a single, elongated button. This is the Sleep/Wake button. To turn on your iPhone 8, you need to press and hold this button until the white Apple logo appears on the screen. It usually takes about three to five seconds. If you see the logo, let go.
If nothing happens, don't panic.
People often forget that these older models require a decent amount of "juice" just to trigger the boot sequence. If the phone has been sitting in a drawer for six months, it might need to sit on a charger for at least twenty minutes before it even has the strength to show you a low-battery icon. Use a genuine Apple 5W or 12W brick if you have one. Cheap gas station cables often fail to provide the consistent voltage required to "jumpstart" a deep-cycled lithium-ion battery.
What if the Side Button is Broken?
This happens more than you’d think. Wear and tear on the iPhone 8 series often leads to "mushy" buttons that no longer click. If your side button is physically damaged, you can still turn the phone on.
Plug it in.
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Seriously. Connecting an iPhone 8 to a power source (wall outlet or a computer USB port) automatically triggers the boot process. It’s a failsafe Apple built in years ago. If the phone is functional but just powered off, the presence of an active Lightning cable will force the Apple logo to appear. This is a great diagnostic trick; if it turns on with a cable but not the button, you know exactly which hardware component needs a trip to the repair shop.
The "Black Screen of Death" and Forced Restarts
Sometimes the phone is actually "on," but the software has crashed so hard the screen stays black. You think it's off. You keep holding the side button, but nothing happens. In this scenario, learning how to turn on iPhone 8 involves a specific "secret" handshake of button presses.
Apple changed the forced restart command with the 8 and 8 Plus. It’s different from the iPhone 7 or the 6s.
- Click and quickly release the Volume Up button.
- Click and quickly release the Volume Down button.
- Press and hold the Side button.
Hold it. Keep holding it. You might have to stay there for 15 seconds. Eventually, if the motherboard is healthy, the Apple logo will flicker onto the screen. This sequence cuts power to the processor briefly, forcing a hard hardware reboot. It's the digital equivalent of pulling the plug on a frozen PC.
Why the Battery Health Matters Now
We have to talk about the elephant in the room: age. The iPhone 8 was released in 2017. Lithium-ion batteries have a lifespan of roughly 500 to 800 full charge cycles. If you’re trying to turn on a device that’s been used daily for years, the battery might be "chemically aged."
When a battery reaches a high level of degradation, it develops high internal resistance. This means it can't deliver the "peak power" needed during the startup phase. You might see the Apple logo for a second, then the phone shuts off again. This "boot looping" is a classic sign that the battery can no longer support the voltage requirements of iOS. According to Apple's own support documentation, once a battery drops below 80% maximum capacity, performance management features kick in, but sometimes even those can't save a failing cell from preventing a successful boot.
Charging Myths and Reality
I’ve seen people try to "warm up" their phones or tap them against a desk to get them to turn on. Don't do that.
If the device won't turn on, check the charging port. Use a wooden toothpick or a dedicated port cleaning tool to gently scrape out pocket lint. You would be shocked at how much compressed denim fuzz can get stuck in a Lightning port. If the cable can't make a clean connection with the pins, the phone won't charge, and it won't turn on.
Also, consider wireless charging. The iPhone 8 was the first iPhone to support the Qi standard. If your Lightning port is broken, placing the phone on a Qi-certified wireless charging pad might provide the power needed to kickstart the device. It's a slower process, but it works as a brilliant workaround for hardware-level port failures.
DFU Mode: The Nuclear Option
If you’ve tried the buttons and the cables and the cleaning, and the phone still won't show signs of life when you try to turn it on, you might be looking at a firmware issue. DFU (Device Firmware Update) mode is the deepest level of restore.
To enter this, you’ll need a computer with iTunes (or Finder on a Mac). Plug the phone in. Perform the Volume Up, Volume Down, and Side Button sequence, but as you hold the side button, also hold the Volume Down button for five seconds. Release the side button but keep holding Volume Down. If the screen stays black but the computer says it has "detected an iPhone in recovery mode," you’ve succeeded. You can then attempt to reinstall the operating system. Note that this wipes your data, so it's a last resort.
Summary of Actionable Steps
If your iPhone 8 is currently a paperweight, follow this logic flow to get it back into the land of the living:
- Perform a Hard Reset: Quickly press Vol Up, then Vol Down, then hold the Side Button for at least 15 seconds. This solves 90% of "frozen" black screen issues.
- The 30-Minute Rule: Plug the device into a known-working wall outlet (not a laptop port) and leave it alone for 30 minutes. If the battery was "deep discharged," it needs time to stabilize before the screen will even turn on.
- Inspect the Port: Use a bright light to look for lint inside the bottom of the phone. If the pins are blocked, it isn't getting power.
- Try a Wireless Pad: If the cable isn't working, a Qi charger can bypass a faulty Lightning port to provide the necessary boot-up energy.
- Connect to a Computer: Sometimes the handshake between a PC/Mac and the iPhone triggers a response that a wall charger cannot.
If none of these steps result in an Apple logo, the internal battery has likely failed or the "U2 Tristar" chip on the logic board (which handles charging) has burned out. At that point, a hardware repair is the only path forward.