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iPhone 4 Proximity Sensor Fix

M

monaarts

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 16, 2010
1,168
51
Kennesaw, GA
So seriously this works, I have now done it on my and my fiance's iPhone 4s. All you need to do is a hard reset. For those of you who don't know what it does - don't worry it doesnt wipe any data from your phone. Here is what you need to do:

- Press and hold the Home Button AND the Lock Button.
- You will see the "Slide to Power Off" screen but just keep holding those buttons.
- In a few seconds you will see the silver apple in the center of a black screen, when you do let go of the buttons. :apple:
- Enjoy a phone with a good proximity sensor! :-D

Post here if it works! :-D



- Joe
 
Too bad... it's getting quite annoying accidentally initiating conference calls and FaceTime attempts without even knowing it!
 
doesn't work...tried everything under the sun....got a email from a senior apple advisor and he told me to contact apple store and tell them i want one of the new iphones being made and to drop " A CAPTURE" wording ....so i called spoke to a supervisor and told them what he had told me....now i am waiting for a newly built phone supposedly gonna pick it up on saturday...
 
Just wanted to come back and add this workaround!

djkidkaz wrote:
I think I may have found a temporary solution to our problem while we wait for a real fix from Apple.

Once you start a call, hit the home button and pull something else up on the screen like a photo so that if the screen comes back on it doesn't have options like END CALL or FACE TIME on the screen to accidentally hit. The calculator may be another good choice as the only way to get it off the screen is to hit the home button.


Just wanted to add to this. As soon as you initiate a call you can double click the home button to bring up recent items and then just hit the photos or whatever you were using as a quick shortcut. It will take you right back to whatever the last photo you had up and you can go to your call.

You can actually use the double home button to view recents and then toggle between the active call and the photo app if you need to get back to the call screen.

Definitely shouldn't have to do this but for people that absolutely need their phone without headphones etc.. this was a great suggestion.

This is working for me so far at least as a work around.
 
Tried it and then made a long phone call. Seemed to be fixed initially, but toward the end of the 20 min call it acted up again.

Oh well, worth a try.
 
I had the proximity sesnor issue too, I found that by removing the screen protector that I had on the problem would go away, obviously I didn't want to be walking around with an iPhone with no screen protector on it so I just got an old one that I had lying around and just cut the top of it off so that there is no screen protector covering the whole speaker section so now the actual LCD screen itself is protected and I no longer have the proximity sensor issue :D
 
I just did a test with voicemail before i did the hard reset.. and one after.. and it SEEMED to work the right way after the hard reset.. but can't be confirmed till a few conversations on the phone. I sure wish it would be fixed. That is my biggest issue outside of the phone not switching cell towers fast enough. I know it gets better reception than my 3G.. but its not switching towers fast enough and I have seen the effects of it (Pandora stopping, etc).
 
Yea... its pretty wide spread. Don't get me wrong I dont think its a majority of iPhones, I hope not anyways, but a good amount of people have the problem. :-(


- Joe
 
SHAWNYMAC said:
doesn't work...tried everything under the sun....got a email from a senior apple advisor and he told me to contact apple store and tell them i want one of the new iphones being made and to drop " A CAPTURE" wording ....so i called spoke to a supervisor and told them what he had told me....now i am waiting for a newly built phone supposedly gonna pick it up on saturday...
Click to expand...

This. Although, I didn't hear anything about the "new" phones being made.


I had reception issues from Thursday through Monday which were fixed with a new SIM card. Still had the proximity sensor issue. After talking to about 8 different Reps over the weekend, finally talked to Holly, who said "what we're doing with these proximity sensor issues is we're capturing them."

So I went into the Apple Store and told the "genius" my issue. He kept saying the sensor is in a different spot on the iPhone 4 and maybe I'm holding it wrong. He wasn't able to reproduce it and I think was getting ready to tell me "tough luck", when I dropped the capture terminology. Almost immediately, he offered me a replacement phone. It has worked flawlessly for the last day and a half.
 
Whats the "capture" terminology? And has everyone confirmed that doing a "Reset All Settings" doesnt fix it? Heard mixed reports on that one.
 
venuslight said:
This. Although, I didn't hear anything about the "new" phones being made.


I had reception issues from Thursday through Monday which were fixed with a new SIM card. Still had the proximity sensor issue. After talking to about 8 different Reps over the weekend, finally talked to Holly, who said "what we're doing with these proximity sensor issues is we're capturing them."

So I went into the Apple Store and told the "genius" my issue. He kept saying the sensor is in a different spot on the iPhone 4 and maybe I'm holding it wrong. He wasn't able to reproduce it and I think was getting ready to tell me "tough luck", when I dropped the capture terminology. Almost immediately, he offered me a replacement phone. It has worked flawlessly for the last day and a half.
Click to expand...

Im dealing with this annoying proximity sensor problem too. Can you explain to me what this "capture" thing even means? Like how did you phrase it when you went into the apple store?

thanks!!!
 
The impression I got from the support rep was that "capturing" meant getting the offending phones out of circulation and replacing them.

At one point, she said something like:

"Yeah, we are capturing all of those phones. Our engineers want to have a closer look at the iPhones that are having those issues..."
 
I'm employing the easiest fix of all. I've simply stopped using mine as a phone. It didn't succeed at that anyway. Having sold my iPod touch a few weeks ago I've simply decided to use my iPhone 4 to replace it. I've rotated one of my other smartphones back into position as my primary device, and all is fine.
 
snobny said:
Im a little lost..lol WHAT is the actual problem with this sensor??
Click to expand...

When you hold the iPhone up to your face to talk on the phone, there is a sensor that tells the phone to turn off the screen so that your cheek doesn't accidentally put your call into speakerphone, start dialing numbers, or checking contacts.

Some people (myself included before I got a replacement phone) have had issues where the sensor was not turning the screen off and therefore they were pressing buttons on the screen with their cheek while in the middle of a call. Not cool.
 
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