You would think the iPhone's touch screen--the hallmark of the whole dang thing--would last for more than five months. Well, think again.
After a particularly wet bike ride on Saturday here in the Bay Area, my iPhone got somewhat damp. (You know, the type of rain that soaks through a coat but doesn't ruin anything.) After the ride, I wanted to text people and noticed the top row of the text keyboard was not responding. I had to press, no squish, down to get a letter. And the cursor would flip out. And the screen looked bad when I did so, just like when you press down on an LCD screen too hard.
After a reset, power-cycle and testing out different touch-based functions (aren't they all?), I was convinced I needed to get help at the Apple store. I made an appointment online for the next day. (All the Saturday appointments were gone by the time I looked online.)
The next day, I found out I wasn't the only one who had a "dead zone" on their screen. The guy next to me at the Genius Bar had the same problem. After attempting a restore, the Apple clerk (who asked me to write that customer service was fast and efficient--it wasn't) brought out a white box (a coffin I thought?) with a new iPhone in it. The clerk said Apple would exchange my phone, and there'd be no charge. It was exactly as I had expected.
The clerk swapped my SIM card out, with a pin conveniently stored in his name tag, and I was on my way, after half an hour.
What surprised was was how all of my settings had been "restored"--ringtones, photos, SMS messages, IMAP settings. The iPhone was activated by AT&T in seconds, the transfer of all the junk on my iPhone took about 30 minutes. Not too bad.
The downsides: the process was a bit of a pain and the restore missed a few pictures I took. (I have to re-assign all the pictures to particular contacts again.) Also, it's a little distressing that such an integral feature failed after five months. The clerk who helped me did say that the technology was very new, and that, as an early adopter, I should have expected as such.
Hmmm.
CHIBA, Japan--The iPhone won't be the only finger-flicking phone on the market for long.
Sharp Electronics is showing off a touch screen at Ceatec, Japan's big tech trade show taking place here this week just outside of Tokyo, that lets you control the interface with finger swipes. Just as with Apple's iPhone, you can flick to shrink the size of images, blow them up, and scroll left to right or up and down. The device is called the "system LCD with embedded optical sensors"--not quite as catchy a name as iPhone.
With Sharp's phone, you don't just make calls--you can also scan in business cards.
(Credit: Michael Kanellos/CNET News.com)But it's no imitator. Sharp has been working on the project for about three years. The company recently started shipping samples to manufacturers.
Unlike the iPhone, which lets you use only two fingers at a time, the Sharp screen lets you use three fingers or more. Where that would come in handy with Web browsing or a phone call, I don't know, but it was sort of cool to see. With a music-playing application Sharp had on display, you can perform three-note chords. I was able to hit do, re and mi simultaneously.
Each pixel in the screen contains an optical sensor. You can also scan business cards in easily, as the picture shows. In this shot, the screen with the sensor on every pixel scanned in the business card and plopped it onto the larger LCD.
You don't hear a lot about Sharp phones in the U.S. but the company has often been on the cutting edge of phone design. It came out with the first LCD TV phone and one of the first phones with a camera embedded in it.
It seems that a few iPhone users are encountering problems with the iPhone's touch screen, prompting Apple to replace some units.
Posters on Apple's support discussion boards and forums belonging to both AppleInsider and MacRumors have complained of dead spots on their iPhone's touch screen, almost like the old floor at the old Boston Garden. On a phone based almost entirely around touch-screen input, this would obviously be a serious problem.
Some posters in Apple's discussion boards and elsewhere are reporting dead spots on their iPhone's touch screen.
(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET Networks)It's not at all clear how widespread a problem this is. There were several active discussions about the problem on Apple's own support forums, noted by AppleInsider and others, but they appear to have been recently pulled from the site. Other Apple-hosted threads are still active, with fewer individuals complaining of dead spots on their iPhone screens.
Apple appears to be replacing iPhones for customers who have encountered this problem, according to AppleInsider's report and the forum postings. An Apple representative did not immediately return a call seeking more information about the problem.
(Credit:
SlashGear)
If you've ever found yourself lusting after a workstation with multiple monitors or other multi-tasking command centers, wait till you get a load of this futuristic creation from Microsoft. The "DigiDesk" literally turns your desk into a desktop with a dual-pane workstation that features touch-screen surfaces to control everything from documents to workflow, according to SlashGear. Alas, it's only a prototype, which the guy in the video says is one of just two in existence. We applaud the concept, but we're still waiting to take it even one step further, throwing entertainment into the mix as well--with a digital coffee table. Just be careful not to spill.
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