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Home button flakey -- thinking of exhcanging phone

zorinlynx

zorinlynx

macrumors G3
Original poster
May 31, 2007
8,452
19,308
Florida, USA
My iPhone 4's home button has become flaky. I'm thinking of taking the phone in and see if they'll exchange it or fix the problem.

My question is, does Apple let you do a device wipe before you surrender your phone to them? I'd rather not all my personal data be accessible the Apple Store employees once they have my phone in their hands.

Basically, I'd like it to go like this.. I demonstrate the problem to them, they agree to swap the phone (or whatever) and I do an "Erase all content and settings" right there in front of them before I surrender it.

What can I expect?
 
Whenever any product needs fixing or replacing, the Apple employee will ask you to erase all content and settings from the device. So if they find that your iPhone needs fixing/repair, they would ask you whether you want to keep or remove any content from the iPhone before handing it over to them. They will let you press the erase button yourself as this gives your own consent, they never delete anything themselves.

The best way to do this, back up all your content to iTunes, go to an Apple store, get it fixed or replaced and restore it to the new phone (or the same phone if it got repaired).

Apple never goes through personal information nor keeps them for their records, maybe dependant on employee, but for peace of mind, delete everything. You cannot trust no one :d
 
I would encourage you to act fast.

Once the button quits you're screwed.

It happened to my friends phone and caused him a lot of time and grief. This is a common problem that if handled soon will save you the same fate.
 
maclaptop said:
I would encourage you to act fast.

Once the button quits you're screwed.

It happened to my friends phone and caused him a lot of time and grief. This is a common problem that if handled soon will save you the same fate.
Click to expand...

How long before it starts acting up, does it pack up altogether? Mine was always bad from the start but has started to become worse, and I don't have time right now to et it exchanged.
 
I brought mine in today to explain that the home button frequently isn't functioning correctly. Sometimes it would take 6 presses for me to exit an app. Even though it worked perfectly fine at the store, he took my word for it and replaced it in 2 minutes with no issue.
 
my phone's home button has been acting up too. i never thought to get it replaced. im going to take a trip to my apple store tomorrow. i just have to restore my iphone as it is jailbroken.
 
Karr271 said:
my phone's home button has been acting up too. i never thought to get it replaced. im going to take a trip to my apple store tomorrow. i just have to restore my iphone as it is jailbroken.
Click to expand...

Got mine exchanged today for the same reason. Took me 5 mins with the genius and walked out the store with a new iPhone in less than 10 mins total. Gotta love Apple's legendary customer service. I am a fan! :apple:
 
Karr271 said:
my phone's home button has been acting up too. i never thought to get it replaced. im going to take a trip to my apple store tomorrow. i just have to restore my iphone as it is jailbroken.
Click to expand...

Just made an appoinment for tomorrow too. Hopefully they don't give me too much of a hassle.
 
Last edited:
saintforlife said:
Got mine exchanged today for the same reason. Took me 5 mins with the genius and walked out the store with a new iPhone in less than 10 mins total. Gotta love Apple's legendary customer service. I am a fan! :apple:
Click to expand...

I'm guessing its a reconditioned phone though ?
 
I'm having the same problem with my home button, sometimes it takes a few presses to get out of an app, etc.

It really seems to me like it is more of a software issue though... there is no consistency when it happens like there would be with a hardware issue.
 
RTigay said:
I'm having the same problem with my home button, sometimes it takes a few presses to get out of an app, etc.

It really seems to me like it is more of a software issue though... there is no consistency when it happens like there would be with a hardware issue.
Click to expand...

Has it always happened with the phone?
 
So I stopped by the store this morning for my appointment. Everything went smoothly, I even got the Genius I wanted, he looked the most empathetic! Anyways, of all days my phone decided to behave and not display any issues. He asked about the Spectra wrap and I mentioned it was because of the bumpers tendency to 'discolor' the band. He said that was reason enough to replace my phone and bam. I even had my headphones replaced after thu quit working. Win!
 
I've been kinda noticing this too. Thought I was just going crazy though ;)

I'll try to get mine replaced. Seems to be a pretty common thing. Should I make an appointment or do u think I could just walk in?

Also, my iPhone is jbed (to enable tethering). Should I do a restore before I go in?
 
I'm considering doing this too, my home button has started to really annoy me lately. I'll leave it a month until I can get up to Apple though, refurb will also give me a higher resale ;)
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8H7 Safari/6533.18.5)

Got it replaced. Didn't even have to prove to the genius that it was broke.
 
So for those of you that got your phone replaced on the spot, the Apple store did not care to do a restore trying to fix it??
 
There are very large threads both here and on Apple's discussion forum regarding the home button issue. Get it replaced.... Apple would not be so quick to replace (new or refurbished) if it was a software issue.
 
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