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Home button - a design problem with iPhone 4?

M

mrdm

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 21, 2010
158
10
I recently had my iPhone 4 replaced due to a faulty home button. It was periodically not registering presses. I've read countless posts from owners with the same issue. Do you think this is a problem with the design, materials or assembly?

Mine was an original iPhone and wondering if this replacement is likely to fare any better? Guess only time will tell. Perhaps they've corrected the problem in recently manufactured phones. I've had an original iPhone and a 3G - never had a problem with the home button. Has anyone had this issue with a newly purchased phone....purchased in the last 3 months or so?
 
I have a zero day iP4 and don't have the home button issue nor does a friend of mine with a phone from the same period. I don't think it matters when it was manufactured.
 
i heard that only the first shipped ones had a problem with the home button.The first ipod touch 4g had also this problem
 
I have a day one iPhone (well, actually day before day one) and mine gets in stages where the home button won't do anything at all. I can push it a million times and it won't do anything. Sometimes it'll happen 5 or 6 times a day, and sometimes it won't do it at all for weeks on end.

It is pretty aggravating, though. I thought I had read it was supposedly just a firmware issue? I'm still on 4.0 so I was hoping it was just firmware related, but I guess not
 
I had a brand new one in May and I pressed the home button a week later and it never came back up. Got stuck or something
 
it's bad when your home button doesn't work anymore.the home button is very important for your idevice.if it's stuck then you can't use it anym0re:eek:
 
There are so many iPhone 4s affected by proximity sensor issues, home button issues, and antenna issues (although that one affects many).

I bought a used iPhone 4 from Kijiji and I have had none of these problems. :p
 
My daughter's iPhone had the same problem intermittently. We took it to the genius bar and they found that there was an app that was not shutting down. This caused the home button to hang up. They suggested to do a complete restore without using the back up.
 
First iPhone 4 had a perfect screen, but home button was broken out of the box.

Second iPhone 4 had perfect buttons, but a severely tinted yellow screen.

Third iPhone 4 has perfect buttons, but a yellow tinted screen.

Going for iPhone 4 number 4 this week, let's see if I can get a perfect one.
 
Personally, I've never had a problem with the home button, but I know lots of people who have. I think it's one of those things that just happen overtime. That button is pressed almost constantly, it's bound to ware out at some point.
 
Hi,


Purchased mine just over 2 weeks ago and at the monent have not had the home button issue {fingers crossed :D}

It's a constantly used moving part so its obviously going to get hammered and some will fail, although it's frustrating when it happens so recently in its life for some owners.

It happens and thats what warranties are for !

I have the yellow tint screen but its a slight tint and does not hamper my usage in any way. I actually prefer the warmth of the tint instead of the bright baby blue I get from my ipod touch 1st generation.
 
it's not just the iPhone 4. My 3G did the same thing. I know a lot of people with various iDevices that have experienced this problem. The downside of having just one button doing all the work is that it wears out a lot quicker.

I've had my iPhone 4 since day one and it recently started having this issue. I go back and forth between having the phone jailbroken. For now I'll keep it jailbroken because I can do everything without having to rely on the home button at all if I don't want to. When iOS 5 comes out hopefully a new phone will be around the corner.
 
I don't think it's a design problem, I just think it wears out because of all the use. Any time you close an app, you press it, when you want to unlock the phone most people will press it, to multi task you press it twice, it gets a ridicules amount of usage. Only way to remedy is if apple switches over to a capacitive button.
 
I had exactly the same problem and the first Apple store I tried just reset it and said if it happens again, come back...

It happened again so I took it back in - clearly not a software issue - and they swapped it out for a remanufactured one straight away. Haven't had a problem since!

I can't help but think that maybe it's the sensor below the button, and that after being pressed a lot it moves or becomes worn? I don't think it's a problem that is exclusively the iPhone 4's though, I've heard that earlier models had the same problem.
 
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To original poster... Yes.
 
I have this problem, in my case I'm sure it's more of a firmware issue than hardware. It can stop responding to multiple presses. If I lock the phone with power button and then unlock with power button + swipe the home button instantly works fine. Every time.
 
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