Comments on: Apple iPhone users reporting unresponsive multi-touch displays

By: Merrill T

Merrill T — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 22:24:42 +0000

I have a Gen.1 iPhone (bought on day 2 of release), on installing OS 3.0, a deadband on the Multi touch screen installed as well. Very small on the bottom of the screen and a pretty wide one in the middle. Since 3.0 lets you change the screen orientation in most applications, I can work around it. “G” and “V” won’t work in landscape (large keyboard) and “send” in text messaging won’t work either. Problem is getting more acute. Went to the Genius bar today and the “Genius” said that OS 3.0 and the screen problems are unrelated and there is no documented case similar to mine. I had to instruct him to document my case… I mean, if they tell everyone that no one else has a problem, but don’t document the problems that are brought in, then everyone has a “unique” problem. The only option according to the “Genius” is to replace the phone. Clearly a design or manufacturing defect of either the hardware or the OS. Why won’t Apple own up to this?

By: Bear

Bear — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 17:05:06 +0000

I just started having this problem (upper half of screen) today.
It’s an original 8GB unit, running OS 3.0.
I did a full factory reset/restore…no luck.
Phone is 23 months old at this point.

I will someone had an add-on external keyboard, similar to the Android G1 or T-Mobile Sidekick keyboard. That would be huge…

By: Jairo

Jairo — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 15:13:22 +0000

Yea me too I feel like crying when they don’t want you to get a new handset & it sucks….

By: Colleen

Colleen — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:35:56 +0000

The bottom strip on my iphone stopped working while it was in the charging station. Never been dropped. However AT&T will not replace, because it is out of warranty they want me to spend the $199 to replace. It is a 8GB and not worth that price to replace. I am not at all happy with the product and am not willing now to buy a new one for fear of the same problem.

By: mike muir

mike muir — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:28:50 +0000

the function button on my iphone is not responding. in order to change from app to app i have to power down the phone. two questions – is powering down the phone over and over a problem? can the function key be replaced?
mike muir

By: Leigh

Leigh — Tue, 12 May 2009 22:31:32 +0000

Small knock from couch to floor and the whole screen went unresponsive, reboot doesn’t help. I’ve got a $2000 clock now. Any advice?

By: alymae

alymae — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 23:50:55 +0000

Almost the same thing happened to me… one month after the 1 year warranty, my “dead zone” happens to be my space bar. Can’t text at all.
Apple won’t send me a refurbished phone for under $199.00, which is, coincidentally the same price as getting the 3g from AT&T with a new contract. Seems a bit premeditated….
So, I wanted to get the new phone anyway, but wanted to pass this one on to my teenager — can’t do that with no texting capabilities.
I’m a little angry.

By: emilio

emilio — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 11:58:37 +0000

One month after getting my iphone (from Orange in switzerland) I noticed that a narrow horizontal band across the screen at around the location of the second row of icons had stopped responding. This is particularly a pain in the ass because the sim unlock button is right in that line. This means that if I have to turn the phone off for any reason… I won’t be able to turn it on for quite a while until the strip starts working again… I have to say that most of the time now it doesn’t respond. The guy at Orange tried to tell me that I needed a software update ..hmpf! I told him clearly it’s a hardware fault and I wanted a replacement. All he could do was to suggest that he could send the phone back to Apple. He said if they couldn’t fix it they would replace it. I will have it back in 2 weeks. I have synced my baby up and I’m just on my way to hand it in. I will let you know of the outcome.

By: Clarissa

Clarissa — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 02:18:52 +0000

same problem what can i do my phone is out of warrenty by three months what can i do to fix this?

By: shadaan

shadaan — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 08:55:25 +0000

I stay in India and i got this phone through a friend in US..the lower part of screen is not responding i.e space bar numericals etc so cant send sms its useless phone for me now and i dont have any genius to help me

By: jorge

jorge — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 01:02:09 +0000

yea i have had the 4gb iphone for quite some time
and just today this happend and i cant use the phone anymore
only the upper half works but not the rest

By: Paul

Paul — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 09:53:54 +0000

I’d posted earlier about my screen having issues, well, 2 months outside of the 1 year warranty, the touch screen stopped responding altogether and I had to pay full price for a replacement (got a 3G). This time I paid the extra amount to have it covered for another year.

By: André de Jongh

André de Jongh — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 12:41:08 +0000

I experience now also a non responsive keypad in the phone section of my iPhone… the line ” * 0 #” is not sensitive anymore to touches. In stead the key above or under one of the concerned keys is being activated.

Strange thing though is that when I unlock my sim card, all the keys appearing in that window (similar to the keypad of the phone application) ARE functioning to all touches….

I live in The Netherlands.

By: Matthew, SF, CA

Matthew, SF, CA — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 17:20:51 +0000

Same problem as Nabeel :

Since a week ago, I cannot click on the main function buttons or make use of the bottom 1/8th of the screen except that the “slide to unlock” bar is working fine.

Unlocked > 1-year old 2.0.1 phone on AT&T. Seems fishy to me…

Anybody have a fix to this problem, pls. share it with us. Will try Genius bar…

Thanks.

By: imad

imad — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 22:52:43 +0000

I bought an Iphone 2G from online, the seller miss advertised it, in other word I was cheated, it was advertised with a “touch screen occasionally freezing”.

Make the story short I ended up with a dead screen phone.

the phone was in immaculate shape, I called 800myiphone, spoke with couple of people to find out that the warranty expired 55 days ago.

I asked for a supervisor who ended up advising me to take it to an AT@T store and have it activated, ignorant as he is, he told me the screen is unresponsive because the phone don’t have an At@t simm, yeh right.

Did I mention I used Pwnage and everything worked like a charm, except the screen still didn’t work, and off course I did restore the phone using Itune couple of times with no avail.

Did I also mention I’m a T-mobile customer.

Make the story long, the next day I called apple again and lied saying I went to an AT@T store to activate the phone and that the store manager concluded that the screen is dead and that my only option was to get back with Apple.

Apple told me I had 2 options, either send it for repair and pay $199 or they could schedule ma an appointment at an Apple store, they call it Genius bar.

off course I decided to sit with one of the geniuses, who could turn down such opportunity?

The genius asked me a series of questions, such as if I tried activating the phone with ATT, he also checked to see if the phone was dropped, any dents, then he told me the warranty expired 56 days ago, but because he felt bad for me……. he went and got me a new one for free.

Conclusion, it doesn’t hurt to try, just make sure you walk into apple store with a credible story.

No wonder I only use Apple computers

By: LtP

LtP — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 18:12:07 +0000

I’ve had my iphone 3G for about two weeks and it’s now making a grinding sound whenever it rings or a ringtone is played (alarm clock etc). It sounds as if there are gears rubbing together or something is loose and off kilter internally, yet I’ve not dropped it, banged it, or jarred it in any way. I’m with Rogers in Canada and cannot wait to see what kind of run around I will get regarding replacement…. Has anyone else experienced this type of issue?

By: mike

mike — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 19:56:01 +0000

I just got the dreaded unresponsive strip on the top of my iPhone. I can’t access the first two rows of icons. The bottom have works. I bought the iPhone in London only 4 months ago. I don’t know if I want a phone that is going to break just outside the mandatory 1 year replacement period. Apple will have to replace the phone this time, but I can’t wait for the argument with them after 12 months….. This sucks.

By: Nabeel

Nabeel — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 05:43:39 +0000

Helo everyone, I bought my iPhone last summer, and today I am having problem clicking on the main function buttons, but the “slide to unlock” bar is working fine.
I have restored and upgraded the device firware to 1.1.4 and still having the same problem.

Anybody have a fix to this problem, pls. share it with us.

Thanks.

By: Marlee

Marlee — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 03:14:00 +0000

I bought my iPhone on day 1. Just last night I was surfing the web on it. Woke up in the AM and for no reason at all the strip where the QWERTY is for Safari/789 on the phone keypad no longer works. Dead. Unresponsive. Guess I’ll wait a week until I get home from vacation and take it into the Apple store. Maybe they’ll replace it with a 3G. Or maybe since the warranty for all us day one purchasers just expired, I’ll have to buy a new one. Smart of them.

By: Kim Ginnerup

Kim Ginnerup — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 14:45:46 +0000

I think I will just write about the next part of my unresponsive iPhone I wrote about on May 31th.
I was on a trip to London and thought why not try and see what Apple have to say about my unlocked but unresponsive iPhone. I got an immediate appointment to the Genious Bar and after a 10 minute wait I had one of the Genious guys looking at my iPhone. They restored it back to default to see if it was the unlocking that was causing the problem. They found that the iPhone still didn’t work and gave me a new one.
So now I am the happy owner of a brand new iPhone which I can see is a never version and had 1.1.4 preinstalled. I am back in Denmark again, with a nice working iPhone.
In the meantime I have washed my headset in the washing machine. ;-( Don’t do that the earplugs still works, but the microphone is dead. Cannot blame Apple for that. Nice service Apple.