iPhone touchscreen not responding

I am an owner of the 1st generation iPhone that I purchased for $440 (including tax). I purchased this phone back in Feb 2008.

It worked very well for first 16 months of its life and then suddenly one day the screen wouldn't respond to touch.

As one of the first steps, I called Apple support (after having rebooted multiple times). The Apple support representative told me to try to backup and restore the phone using iTunes. He also mentioned that if that did not work it would mean that there is a hardware problem. He then claimed that I was out of the warranty period of 1 year and hence the iPhone is as good as a paperweight! I was shocked by his response and double confirmed if he was joking. But he was not joking and he continued to repeat that if it was out of warranty and it was a hardware problem, it was indeed as good as a paperweight!

Anyways, going ahead...I rebooted ~50 times and then magically it started working ONLY to stop working again a month later.

This time I took an appointment with APPLE GENIUS at the Stanford shopping center. He ran some diagnostics and confirmed it to be a hardware problem. He suggested investing another $199 + tax into a new iPhone!

Searching on the web, my iPhone is not the only one to have seen this. Looks like a lot of people have faced the exact same issue.

Here are some of the links:

http://www.fixya.com/support/t191484-iphone_touch_screen_not_working

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=407493

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1465650

http://forums.ilounge.com/archive/index.php/t-203009.html

If so many people have seen the problem, then obviously there is some known defect. In that case, Apple should act professionally and either recall the product or provide a useful solution. IMHO, just getting the iPhone out of the door should not be the end goal.

As a side note,I still have the Blackberry working flawlessly for last 4 YEARS!

This is definitely a very horrible experience with my first AND last Apple product!

Comment On This

I am experiencing exactly the same problem with my iPhone. It is very disappointing to know that Apple has known about this issue and has not recalled the product or supported their customers in a reasonable manner. My expensive iPhone is now a worthless paperweight...