Screen has bad spots - inactive touchscreen problems

Any change after turning the phone off and back on?

If not, have you tried performing a reset by holding the Home key and Sleep/Wake key simultaneously until the white Apple logo appears?

Hey Keith Wilson1,

Try to restore the iPhone as described here:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305744

If the issue persists take it to a retail Apple store. You can make a reservation online here: http://www.apple.com/retail/

When you get the iPhone replaced you will not need to go through activation process again. The SIM card will be swapped out and put in the new iPhone.

Jason

Yea, mine had a similar area - very top of screen. It wasn't 'dead'. Just very hard to touch and have it recognize the touch! On YouTube it was nearly impossible to delete what was in the text box under the search page by clicking the little 'x' icon in the form field.

Stopping by the Apple store I find they are ALL this way... nothing defective on mine or yours (unless it's worse than described).

That's defective return it and let us know how it goes... I can tell you that going to the Apple Store for a small issue mine had was WONDERFUL. They were genuinely concerned and replaced it right away.

I will bet dollars to pesos that the experience will NOT be the same at the AT&T store.

Unfortunately it does sound like your screen is defective.

But FWIW I was convinced I had a dead zone too. I could NEVER get the bookmark icon to do anything with Safari in landscape mode (right or left). Still can't right now as we speak, UNLESS I tap properly.

Pressing, like you would press a doorbell, won't cut it. A brisk tap, starting a full quarter inch above the screen, using the pad of your finger not the tip, works every time.

Ditto for faster, more accurate typing.

-dan

My touchscreen went out today. Did all reset and restored software with itunes. Called 1800myiphone and they are overnighting a box to ship it in to get repaired. To get a loaner iphone they charge $29.00. Before I accepted this charge I check to see if my sim would work in my old phone a Razor, It worked fine. So I will be using my Razor until this is fixed. ETA for iphone return is 3 days.

I have had the same problem! Mine is in the upper-left hand corner of the screen. Google Maps is unusable, because I can't press the top to enter an address!

I went to the apple store yesterday and they took it to send it away for repair. Its a little annoying that I now have no phone for several days. I wish that Apple would have some sort of "super" applecare that would just swap out a non-functioning phone. The apple guy didn't even tell me that I could get a temporary iPhone for the next few days. I think I might just pick up an old Cingular phone to drop the SIM in if I ever need to relinquish the iPhone for a problem.

Mine went bad last night, but mine is the whole bottom and a small portion in the middle. None of the bottom 4 buttons work on the home screen which means no phone, email, safari or ipod and you can't select the text input box or use the bottom row on the qwerty keyboard. The middle section is right where you tell it to ignore the network that it has found so I just have to hit the Home button to get out of that step.

I'll be visiting the apple store here in Portland tomorrow and luckily my old razor works great with my sim card. Hoping that this is an easy thing to fix or just replace. I've already had them replace one already because it was DOA and luckily that time they just swapped it out. I'm not exactly expecting that this time as that was on the 30th, next day after it came out.

anyway, good luck and please update when you hear something.

Dano

Unfortunately, I have the same problem. The bottom of my screen lost sensitivity after only about 20 days of use. First the very bottom of the screen went out so I could not hit the space-bar on the keyboard, or change to the number/character screen. Then it got worse a few days later, now I cannot hit any of the main function buttons. I have no Phone, no Safari, no iPod, and no Mail... I can barely get the slider to work when unlocking.

I have gone through the reseting procedure as well as restoring it completely, This made no difference as it is clearly a hardware issue.

It's too bad that there are so few physical buttons because when the screen goes out, it is seriously useless.

Apple should not be charging people for a temporary phone while repairing this type of thing, it is an obvious manufacturing issue, and it is costing my business money for me to be without my phone.

I have yet to get this repaired, as I am in China on business, so I'm totally screwed. I have to go out and pay full price for an antiquated replacement phone out here.

I do really love this phone, it is by far the best consumer electronic device I've ever used, but that makes me even more bitter that I'm stuck out on a business trip without it, and forced to use a cell phone from another company stuck in the ice-age.

Bottom of my screen lost its sensitivity. Could not type space key in keyboard. Returned to Apple store where I bought it. They tried restart, reset, restore. No joy. They replaced my phone (swapping SIM card into a brand new one -- they kept the box and accessories for the new one, as I had not brought mine). I went home and restored. I am a happy camper. (I note that the restore did not restore all my prefs, such as settings, clocks, weather locations. That was too bad.)

Also, I was lucky that the defect showed up in < 14 days. That meant my store could simply swap phones. After 14 days, it would have had to be 'sent back for repair' and I would have had to get a loaner phone.