Touch Disease: What Happens when your iPhone Goes on Strike

October 4th, 2016. By LucyC

So where do you start? Perhaps where the disease was first reported, to the best of our knowledge, that is. That might be a good place. Initially, that was among American users, now Canadians are jumping on the defective products bandwagon. If I’m not mistaken, it has also been reported in Europe. I am, of course, referring to the iPhone 6 and 6+ Touch disease. It’s changing the way Apple fans feel about their appendages. And not for the better. Seriously folks.

Touch disease. An interesting term. But how else would you describe a complete non-response from an object that basically functions by touch? It’s a slave to the stroke, swipe and tap. Granted, calling it a disease might be taking things a little too far. But let’s roll with it.

The symptoms? Basically, no matter how often or how fondly you fondle your iPhone, it doesn’t respond. So, you can’t answer your calls, send texts, emails or anything else for that matter. The iPhone has had enough, wants a divorce, and half of the asset base. No, wait, I’m getting confused.

Maybe 6 and 6+ just want some time off, feel used, or perhaps, they want to be made properly. According to the lawsuits, the underlying problem—the cause of Touch disease—is the touchscreen controller chips in the phone’s motherboard. Allegedly, they aren’t properly secured and can malfunction with regular use.

As one tech journalist explains it, in his article entitled “The hell of owing an iPhone 6 with Touch disease” (ok, we are not talking the plague here, just to be clear) … “touch disease” is an iPhone 6 Plus flaw related to “bendgate” in which the two tiny “Touch IC” connectors, which translate touchscreen presses into a machine input, become unseated from the phone’s logic board. It can be recognized by flickering gray bars along the top of the phone, and is associated with intermittent or total touchscreen failure,” (Jason Koebler, Motherboard.com)

This catastrophe could result in thousands of people scouring the streets in search of pay phones (best of luck there), and reading newspapers on the subway to work. It’s also possible that spontaneous conversations between strangers may be reported as becoming more common. Parents may remember to put their children in the car before they leave to drive them to school. Book sales could increase, and Jeopardy could find itself inundated with contestant applications.

Or, Samsung Galaxy could corner the market. But then they have their own problems. Let’s not go there just yet.

Whatever happens, Apple could find itself in hot water over this one. Touch disease apparently presents with symptoms almost as soon as the warranty has expired. Not surprisingly, class action lawsuits have been filed in the US and also in Canada.

The allegations including freezing or not responding to touch commands. I wonder if yelling at it works…

The lawsuits claim that Apple was aware of the problem but, yes you guessed it, did nothing to remedy the problem. What’s that saying—if it’s broke don’t fix it, just keep calm and carry on? Something like that. Looks like that is the strategy here, hence the lawsuits.

So keep calm and carry on folks—join a lawsuit, buy a different phone, get a newspaper subscription—maybe by iPhone 15 Apple will have worked out all the kinks. Holding your breath is not advised.

Tags: Apple, Defective Product, iPhone, Touch Disease

This was posted on Tuesday, October 4th, 2016 at 3:51 pm and is filed under Class Action, Defective Products . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.