Is the Power Button Necessary

The only 2 major things I can think of are:

1) No screenshots

and

2) You can't hard-reset the phone if it locks up


I dunno how important those are. You could conceivably end up with a frozen phone some day and you'll have to wait 30 hours for the battery to die. That could be a problem but it's not certain to happen. It's only happened to me 4 or 5 time in 4 years. Not much, but it happens.

So I dunno. Depends on how critical your phone is to you.

 

You could jailbreak it and then you could install SBSettings which has Power Off, Reboot, Lock options. Another option is Activator which lets you set buttons/gestures to different actions. For example you could triple click the home button to lock the phone.

 

What Small White Car said, plus you won't be able to manually lock the phone. You'll have to wait for the timer to do that.

 

Ok, 20 minutes after I posted that my phone froze and I had to hard-re-boot it.

It KNEW what I'd typed and decided to mock me for it.

Yeah, you probably do need a power button. Get the replacement-cost iPhone from Apple. I think it's like $200 or something.

 

Your iPhone was mocking you, nay, taunting you.

 

iPhone vengeance is nothing to trifle with.

 

It's $149 now, for the 4. The 4S is still $199 for OOW replacement.

 

Word to the wise, taking your phone in to the Apple Store is not the same as contacting Apple. The Apple Store is more likely to give you the finger and reach for your wallet, whereas Apple may try to help you out, even if it's well out of warranty.

 

Did you originally purchase your phone with a credit card? You may have extra coverage. My Chase card doubles the original warranty, basically giving me AppleCare for free. My launch-day iPhone 4's home button has become quite finicky. I called Chase a few days ago to start the process for a warranty claim. Assuming it's approved, I will pay Apple the $149 for a warranty replacement, and Chase will reimburse me.

Hopefully the replacement will hold up until the iPhone 5 comes out, whenever that may be.

 

Not to change the subject too much but if I'm reading this right. If I broke my 4s apple store would replace it for me for 199?

And if that is correct would I be able to upgrade to a 5 if I broke my 4s for 199 or whatever when it comes out? Or are you stuck with the same model? I'm not going to purposely break my phone but if you need one that seems like a good time to upgrade.

 

Yup.

No, you'd still get a 4S.