Apple announced that later this fall they will release iOS 7 for their mobile devices. iOS 7 will bring a lot of new changes, including an overall of the iOS interface. But there will be some other changes beyond that, so let’s take a quick peak at what they have announced.

First, as I said there will be a big change to the iOS interface, which includes changing the icons in favor of flatter colored icons, as you can see in the picture of this post. Also a lot of our favorite core apps, such as Calendar, Messages, Mail, and Weather have also been overhauled to match this new interface.

iOS 7 will also add in a new feature called Control Center, that is basically a toggle bar that lets you change basic settings of your iOS device, such as brightness, bluetooth, do not disturb, etc. They will even add in a basic flashlight into the core iOS, which so far people have had to download apps to use as a flashlight.

A new feature called AirDrop will allow supported apps to share files to other iPhones, email, social networks, and even over WiFi. But the functionality of this depends upon the supported app.

Camera and Photos is also being redesigned to allow for square, widescreen picture settings. The Photo app is also being given a lot of additional photo filters. Photo sharing is also getting updated, allowing for new organization and sharing of photo streams within iCloud. This will allow shared pictures with friends where anyone can upload and make comments on the pictures.

Another big change is coming to Siri, who will have the option to have either a male or female voice. Additional voice commands will be added which will include things like “increase brightness”. Other services will be integrated with siri, such as Twitter and Bing.

iTunes Radio is a new feature coming to the Music app, that will allow you to stream your music within iTunes, similar to Pandora or Spotify. It will also integrate into AppleTV as well. The service is free and will have ads, but there will be an option to remove the ads if you are an iTunes Match subscriber.

One of the greatest features that Apple has for iOS is Find My iPhone, which will get a new function called Activation Lock. what this means is that if your iOS devices gets stolen, you will now have the ability to lock it out so it cannot be re-activated without your iTunes password.

Even with those mentioned, there are still a lot of other features comingout in iOS 7. Right now iOS 7 will be available for the iPhone 4 and above, the iPad mini, and iPad 2 and above. More information can be found on Apple’s website for iOS 7.

Sometimes the Home button on the iPad can become unresponsive or stick, and fixing hardware issues on an iPad is next to impossible.  But before you pay money to have it repaired, or run out to buy a new iPad, there are a few tricks that you can try yourself to fix it.

First you can try to fix the iPad home button by doing a rotate trick. Turn your iPad in portrait mode (turning it so the longer side is vertical) then open an app such as Notes. Press and hold the home button then turn your iPad to landscape mode (turning your iPad so the longer side is horizontal). Once the Notes app changes so it is in landscape mode, turn it back to portrait mode, while still holding down the Home button. Once the app is back in portrait mode, release the Home button and see if that helps to resolve your issue.

If the rotate trick doesn’t work, another great trick you can try to restore the use of your Home button is to use the Power Switch. Press and hold the power button on your iPad until you get the red swipe bar to power off your iPad, but don’t actually power it off. Then press and hold your Home button on your iPad for 30 seconds, or until the red power swipe bar disappears. Now you can try using your Home button again and see if that helps fix your Home button.

Sometimes if your Home button is sticking it might just be as simple as cleaning your Home button. Take a couple of drops of rubbing alcohol and drip onto your Home button. Then press and hold your Home button to work the rubbing alcohol around the edges. The rubbing alcohol will remove any build up that might be getting in the way of your Home button. The rubbing alcohol will evaporate after a few seconds, and will not harm your iPad.

Of course in some cases you may not care a lot about your Home button on your iPad. You can mimic a lot of its gestures right from the screen. Such as closing an app can be done by taking four to five finger and swiping them into the center of the screen. Or you can bring up the multi-app menu by taking four fingers or more and swiping up. As far as I can tell these gestures only apply to iPads and not iPods or iPhones. Of course you can also change your accessibility settings and setup iOS Assistive Touch to mimic an on screen virtual Home button.

So if you are having issues with your Home button on your iPad, maybe give these tricks a try before paying to repair or replace your existing iPad. I know on my own iPad they have been useful and resolved my Home button problems before.