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Has your iPhone 4 power/lock button died?

R

ryanide

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 23, 2002
292
31
I'm wondering how many other people have had their lock/power button stop working? Mine died completely out of the blue. It was sitting on the bookshelf while I was working and I picked it up several times during the day to check my email and the time and then it didn't turn off like normal. I checked the button and it looks slightly depressed on the right side. But I didn't drop it or press it unusual.

So, I made an appointment at the Apple store to have them check it out. I bought it on the launch day, so it was 56 days out of warranty. The crazy thing is that while I was waiting there was another person there for exactly the same thing and he also bought it on launch day. They offered us both a replacement for $200 since neither of us had AppleCare.

I just wonder how many other people are starting to have this problem. Maybe Apple timed this part to fail just after the 1 year mark??
 
Mine is fine and so are the other 3 iPhone 4s here that were all delivered on launch day last year. :D

Just how would Apple time this type of failure since everyone would have a differnt usage of the button?

Dave
 
Mine went out on me about 6 months after getting the phone, also purchased on launch day. Never dropped it, and the phone was in an otterbox defender as well. Lucky for me I was still under apple care. Sucks that yours has run out! Best of luck to you!
 
ryanide said:
Maybe Apple timed this part to fail just after the 1 year mark??
Click to expand...

Yes, Apple is so strapped for cash that they designed a faulty part that would fail exactly one year later to ensure that they could rake in the $200 dollar replacement fees.

I would try calling Apple support over the phone, most people usually get way better results there than at the Genius bar, from what I've heard. You can probably escalate your case to a supervisor/manager/etc and maybe luck out with a replacement.
 
Mine broke a week before the one year warranty was up.
Went to the apple store and 20 min later walked out with a new one.
I wouldn't pay 200 for a fix. Might as well wait for the iPhone 5.
 
There are three iPhone 4's in my family. The button you are referring to is fine on all three.

However I've had three replacements of mine due to the home button failing completely. Once when it was 6 months, the second one died after 5 months, and the third, just failed. Apple replaced each one at the store.

Another one that belongs to a family member has had just one home button fail, yet that's a pretty good indicator of declining Apple quality. Very disappointing.

I've had every model of iPhone made, and the older ones were all very high quality.
 
I have had this problem with my day-one iPhone 4! Got it replaced at the local Apple store with a refurbished one! My power button had sunken in too for some strange reason. Thank goodness I replaced it just a month before my warranty ended :eek:
 
Yeah, mine went out about 3 months or so after launch. The button wouldn't "click" at all. Got it replaced at the genius bar.
 
ryanide said:
I'm wondering how many other people have had their lock/power button stop working? Mine died completely out of the blue. It was sitting on the bookshelf while I was working and I picked it up several times during the day to check my email and the time and then it didn't turn off like normal. I checked the button and it looks slightly depressed on the right side. But I didn't drop it or press it unusual.

So, I made an appointment at the Apple store to have them check it out. I bought it on the launch day, so it was 56 days out of warranty. The crazy thing is that while I was waiting there was another person there for exactly the same thing and he also bought it on launch day. They offered us both a replacement for $200 since neither of us had AppleCare.

I just wonder how many other people are starting to have this problem. Maybe Apple timed this part to fail just after the 1 year mark??
Click to expand...

did you pay $200 for the replacement?
 
My button and my wife's button are both just about done. Same with my iPhone 1 and 3G.

I don't think they timed it but there is a finite amount of click that you can get from a micro switch and I think it's more prevelant now because of the delayed iPhone.
 
Last edited:
ryanide said:
I'm wondering how many other people have had their lock/power button stop working? Mine died completely out of the blue. It was sitting on the bookshelf while I was working and I picked it up several times during the day to check my email and the time and then it didn't turn off like normal. I checked the button and it looks slightly depressed on the right side. But I didn't drop it or press it unusual.

So, I made an appointment at the Apple store to have them check it out. I bought it on the launch day, so it was 56 days out of warranty. The crazy thing is that while I was waiting there was another person there for exactly the same thing and he also bought it on launch day. They offered us both a replacement for $200 since neither of us had AppleCare.

I just wonder how many other people are starting to have this problem. Maybe Apple timed this part to fail just after the 1 year mark??
Click to expand...
I have a broken lock button. Tried to fix it myself and messed up the phone even more. I am going to the Apple Store tomorrow to see what they can do.
 
AMEX to the rescue

Since I purchased the iPhone with my American Express, I was able to file a claim with their extended warranty department (AMEX extends the manufacture's warranty by one year on most products purchased) and they reimbursed the entire amount that I paid for the iPhone!!

Gotta love AMEX!!
 
greygray said:
I have had this problem with my day-one iPhone 4! Got it replaced at the local Apple store with a refurbished one! My power button had sunken in too for some strange reason. Thank goodness I replaced it just a month before my warranty ended :eek:
Click to expand...

There's nothing strange about it. Sadly Apple just got cheap. These are failing left and right. I'm on my third.

Funny how none of the previous models failed like this. It's a known issue & I wouldn't let Apple scam me for $200. Be assertive and they'll replace it for free.

I love Apple and this is horribly disappointing, but that's what success has done. They are now in a position to be very greedy and go for even more profit.
 
wallpapers download

Once your iPhone is resetted, if you have a backup of your data you can also restore it back to your iPhone. But be aware that all your data store after the backup on your iPhone will be erased if you restored.:rolleyes:

wallpapers download
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

ucfgrad93 said:
My day one iPhone 4 is still going strong. No problems at all.
Click to expand...

Ditto and I hope it holds up as its in the mail to a eBay buyer lol
 
ZombiePete said:
Eh, I think that it's been a few years so you can probably let it go.

Epic necro.
Click to expand...

HAHAHA

But I kinda agree with what the people said in this thread, my iPhone 4S's power button failed TWO WEEKS after the 1 year warranty ended. Had to pay the 200$.
 
Gabichon said:
HAHAHA

But I kinda agree with what the people said in this thread, my iPhone 4S's power button failed TWO WEEKS after the 1 year warranty ended. Had to pay the 200$.
Click to expand...

Jeez. I hate when that happens. So annoying. Mine failed less than ONE week before the warranty expired, I was fortunate this time around.
 
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