If you answered yes to most of the above questions then it may be time for you to do the following (which doesn't involve having to buy a new smartphone) and which puts a virtual home button on your iPhone's screen.

The problem of the iPhone's physical home button not working after a period of ownership has been well documented on Apple's help forums. And if you're within the one-year Apple warranty period then it might be worth dropping into the Apple Genius bar for a replacement phone.

But if you're like me and you are outside of the warranty period and don't want to pay for a new iPhone while you wait for the rumoured iPhone 5 later this year, then you may want to do what one of my housemates (a former third-party Apple technician) told me to do after he saw me yelling at my iPhone in the loungeroom recently.

To all the tech-savvy people out there that will say something similar to "this isn't new", I apologise. But many I have told about this recently have either installed it after I've spoken of it or told me they are using it already.

The fix works on the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S.

Here's what you need to do

To turn the virtual home button on, navigate through the following menus:

Settings > General > Accessibility > Assistive Touch

There you will find an on/off slider which you should turn on. Shortly after turning it on you will see a square icon that you can touch the centre of to show you a number of options, one of which is the home button.

If that wasn't simple enough, here's a YouTube tutorial:

If I have saved your thumb, you are welcome.

 This reporter is on Facebook: /bengrubb