How can I restart an iPhone 4S with a broken lock button and frozen springboard?

Question

My springboard has frozen and the lock button is broken (two months out of warranty and it's not classed as a hardware failure).

How do I restart the phone given that I can't access any apps or settings?

Waiting for the battery to drain will take days, so that's not an option. Is there a way through iTunes to force a reboot or is there a program I can download to force a reboot?

Answer 1

If you're lucky, you have enabled fast-switching to Assistive touch. Try triple-clicking the Home-button. If there's an option called AssistiveTouch popping up, click it and you'll find where you can turn it off.

If not, there isn't really any other options. You could try this tips I got at the Apple Support Disscussion:

You can squeeze (pinch) the Power Button top corner front glass to the back case while pushing the Power Button and the Power Button will usually function.

If you have jailbreaked your iPhone and by chance enabled SSH, you could connect to it and reboot it from there, following this guide.