My Apple iPhone Stopped Working!
I am sad to say it, but my Apple iPhone has officially become unusable. I am pretty pissed that my $500 phone lasted only 10 months. I am really hoping to get a replacement since it is still covered under Apple’s one year warranty.
Photo by williamhook
So What Happened?
Last Tuesday, while I was on vacation the bottom half inch of the screen stopped working. It did not bother me at first, until I realized I could no longer use the space bar when typing.
Have you ever tried sending a text message with no space bar? It does not work very well. Not to mention the special character button would not work either. No more periods, question marks, or any other symbols for that matter.
Restore: The Fix?
I read some technology forums and it seems a lot of people have suffered from the same problem happening to the iPhone. One of the forums had a fix that said it was a software issue and that a restore may work, otherwise it needs to be replaced.
So I tried the restore and of course… it didn’t work. I still did not have a working space bar. And worst of all, it deleted all of my songs and contacts. So I did not have anyone’s number while on vacation and did not have any songs to listen to on the airplane ride back to phoenix. Grrr!!
And Then Things Got Worse!
As of Saturday, the entire bottom half of the screen no longer works. This basically made the phone useless since I cannot do hardly anything with it.
I can see when people call me, but I cannot answer it since the answer button is on the bottom half of the screen. The keyboard no longer works at all so text messaging is not even an option anymore.
Luckily, I found a small work around that at least allows me to dial out. If someone sends me a text message, I can still hit the call button at the top of the conversation. So it is possible to call people if they send me a message first hand.
But it does not really help me since I can not get a hold of anyone to tell them to text message me in the first place.
Apple Store Here I Come…
So at this point, I am ready to barge in to the Apple store here in Phoenix and see what is up with this thing. I am really hoping to get a replacement of some kind. I just hope they don’t make me wait to get a new phone in the mail.
I will keep everyone posted and let you know how this whole thing works out. Please feel free to comment if you have the Apple iPhone and have had any problems with it.
Posted on: June 30th, 2008
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Yeah, I’ve constant problems with the iPhone and especially with AT&T’s non-existent cell reception. Have you tried plugging in the headphones and using the little microphone (clicking it once) to answer calls?
So no flash, no instant messaging, no copy and paste and glitchy hardware and software…what a deal for $500-$600!
What? If products from Apple start going down, it is really ridiculous. However, Apple is known for good customer relationships. Hope your problem gets solved
Yeah I am not real happy with it at this point. If they don’t replace it for free, I doubt I will buy another one.
I would definitely go right away to the Apple store (make an appointment first). Any time either of my sons had problems with an apple product, they got great service. If it is still under warranty, they will either fix it or give you a new one. If you make an appt. first you won’t even have to wait.
man that is bad ,, first your pc wanted some pimping
and then your Phone ..
you really should go to apple store and letting them fix it
@Ameo
Lol, the one who wanted my computer pimped was ME, not Justin
Funny you thought it was him though, because we were good real life friends when he lived out here in Hawaii, and you happen to visit both our blogs.
Small world.
that sucks. i hope all works out smoothly and QUICKLY
I have the same problem, but instead of the bottom it’s the top half. And I can’t text, because the widget is so high, and I can’t dial any of the top 2 row of numbers. It blows. And apparently Apple doesn’t cover that kind of problem. It’s indicated as user fault under their warranty, I believe. So what I’m going to try and do is fix it myself-the problem has to do with the digitizer, the piece that allows for touch screen to actually work. It’s about 7 layers of reinstillation, but if all works. I’ll let you know….maybe, if I remember to go to your site lol. Alright, hope all works out before the new phone comes out.
Hi Justin, I came across your blog as I have had the same problem myself, except, the entire touch screen is unresponsive. I have restored it, did a few hard reboots and was ready to toss it out the window. It’s my one and only voice life line to the outside world and I can’t even make a 9-1-1 call if I needed to. So, I go to the Apple website to see what I could find…a lot of nothing. I begin a Chat with Carla G. Her answer, “Call Apple Care in the morning at 9am EST”. WTH!? I can’t submit an online request somewhere for help? Nope, I’m SOL until I can get some place else that has a phone I can use to call Apple Care, to have them likely tell me to go into an Apple Retail Store (which I plan on doing anyway). My phone is still under warranty (1 year hardware), so I am seriously hoping that it’s a hardware issue and they are as friendly as everyone says and will replace it. Heck, I’d hope to get something out of it for having to go 15 hours without the use of my $500 paper weight.
So, how did your experience turn out?
I recently got the same problem when I dropped my phone down the stairs. At first, I thought nothing had happened, since everything was intact. Soon, I realized everything wasn’t okay.
The bottom half of the screen stopped responding. After the described restores etc I ended up cracking up the whole casing and tried desperately to find something that would be loose. No luck.
Even though it’s only 8 months old, I guess there’s nothing I can do. It’s bought in the states and hacked in order to make it work in Europe and as far as I know, that makes the warranty void.
I read somewhere about some software hack that could be made with 1.1.4 and iBrickr software. It supposedly would be able to increase the sensitivity of the screen, but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t help my case, at all.
So after 8 months of joy I’ve ended up with an 8gb iPod Shuffle (since, if you press home twice you get the controls to your ipod, which are on the top part of the screen). Whopty doo!
Please let me know if you know some solution!
@ Max
That is a tough one, I would of said take it to the Apple store but since you hacked it, I have a feeling they wouldn’t like that. So I am not sure what else you could do other than what you said, you it as a crappy shuffle.
i have a different problem altogether and doesnt seem to find any solution..i do have a cracked iphone(not 3g) and the problem is when i start my phone the start up screen works for less than a sec and freezes..i can’t even enter the main screen…and when i keep on sliding my fingers blindly during startup the unlock bar slides suddenly and freezes again..sometimes i get to the main screen this way but then everything freezes…HELP!!! PLEASE DONT ADVISE ME HARD OR SOFT RESET..I HAVE TRIED IT BILLIONS OF TIME…AND THE ITUNES DOESN’T RECOGNISE MY PHONE..SO I CANT EVEN FORMAT OR RESET THE FIRMWARE…HEEEEEELP!
I have the same problem. The first person I talked to at apple was very nice, said she is aware of the problem and sent me right to Frank the customer service God.
Frank did all of the talking, never let me get a word in. When I told him this is a common problem and there are posts all over the web, he told me not to believe everything I read on the web. He denied this is a problem. Says he feels bad for me for not buying apple care.
Said it would be $200 to have it fixed. I ended up having to use my old ATT phone that is 4 years old and still works with no problem. I think it was a free phone.
I am really mad about this and am waiting for my contract to expire and I am going to buy a google phone.
This just happened to me today =[
i was just in the middle of texting someone and all of a sudden i just froze up… i cant even unlock my phone now.. i reset the thing and it still wont work.
Im really worried cause i thought that the Iphone was all top notch.. guess i was wrong
hi, i am having the same problem with my iphone
what happened with yours justin?
can you please describe how your experience at the apple store was because mine is unlocked and im going to try to go in using my friends att sim card, i would like to know how closely they checked everything, i.e. your att account.
thanks so much
Hey Yann, I had a really good experience with Apple. I took it in and they ended up swapping it out for a new phone. Make sure to tell them you have read a lot of other people have had the same problems and they were able to get them fixed. That should do it.
You should be able to just swap out the SIM card and take it in. They didn’t really check much when I took mine in. Though they did plug it in to a computer and synched it up for me.
Good luck!
I am still reviewing my documentation, but best as i can tell, i haven’t signed any agreements with Apple. I thought I will be filing in small claims. I’ll let you know how it goes.
atmwool@hotmail.com if you want to stay in touch.
I have had my I phone for 4 months and I have had my I phone freeze up on me 2 times. The 1st time it happened I took the phone to the AT&T store and they plugged it up and the technician messed with it for 15 mins and it worked again. Tomorrow morning im taking it to a nearby Apple store and hope they can fix the problem. I should have kept my Blackberry.
that’s bad. hope you had it fixed already.