My iPhone 4 only works when plugged in...

Not sure what is going on, but your iPhone obviously has a problem.

Standard troubleshooting steps in order are:

Power your iPhone off and on.

An iPhone reset.

Restore your iPhone with iTunes from your iPhone's backup.

Restore your iPhone with iTunes as a new iPhone or not from your iPhone's backup.

If no change after the last step, your iPhone has a hardware problem. The iPhone includes a one year warranty. You can call AppleCare or make an appointment at an Apple store if there is one nearby.

Im started having the exact same problem two days ago. EXACTLY!!! I restored it from the 4.2.8 original firmware with no luck. I even jailbroke it to see if it would fix it. No luck. It seems like everytime i touch someone on the bottom of the iphone it cuts off and wont cut back on unless plugged in. I used iRecovery and entered a few commands, and it said something about the swi gas gauge line is out. ( thats not exactly what it said but it was something like that) I took it to the apple store and he plugged it in and it worked first try . when i got to the car it was turned off again and i couldnt turn it back on till i plugged it in. Now it wont even boot up or restore.

I am having exactly the same problem. I powered down the phone. Went to restart it and nothing happened! I can only use it when connected to AC power , so I can't do a restore by connecting to iTunes because when it unplug it - phone dies. When you plug it into a computer via USB nothing happens, itunes doesn't register that its plugged in.

Have tried holding Home and Power buttons down for 10 , 20, 30 60 seconds, no luck !.

The phone is barely 3 months old. Go figure - what can I do , the phone is basically useless.

Dear Apple seeing these posts and other posts where the iPhone just stops make me "not a happy customer" and I join the countless others who are experiencing similar failures, be they hardware or software.

That's what your warranty is for. Take it back or call AppleCare and they will give you a replacement.

This is a user to user help forum ONLY. You aren't addressing anything to Apple here.

As already provided, the iPhone includes a one year warranty.

Allan would it be inpolite to ask if you work for Apple. Thats what a "Warranty is for " doesn't cut it for me there's obviously a few quality issues that Apple needs to deal with. The iPhone is not a cheap product.

No I don't. As already provided, this is a user to user help forum only.

If the warranty doesn't cut it for you, then live with it. If no change after the troubleshooting steps provided, your iPhone has a hardware problem which is what the warranty is for.

A Mercedes vehicle is an expensive product which includes a warranty, and the service bays at a Mercedes dealership stay full.

There are over 100 million phones sold. Some of them will break in their lifetime. That's why Apple and other manufacturers offer a warranty. If products never broke there would be no reason for manufacturers to offer warranties.

Thanks Lawrence and Allan, you have confirmed my experience that "there's obviously a few quality issues that Apple needs to deal with " , as this is not an isolated post.

That is what the warranty is for - end of story.

These discussions are like a hospital for Mac products, nothing but problems reported here. A few posts here reporting the same out of the millions of iPhones sold means no such thing.

Suppose there were 100 posts, or even 1000. Would that represent a quality issue? At 1000 (and there are nowhere near that number of posts of this problem) that would be a 0.1% failure rate, far better than any other electronic product you can buy. The industry average for failures during the warranty period is around 5% depending on the product and brand.

@Allan , end of story? wow, who owns the story?

@Lawrence , yes it does pose quality issue.

@blow, you darn sure don't.

@ Allan , I am sorry to say this but as a consumer / customer I am part of the story. I will repeat it again "there's obviously a few quality issues that Apple needs to deal with " , warranty or no warranty, Apple evangelist or not.

@blow, you repeating it certainly does not make it so.

If you can produce evidence indicating Apple's failure rate for this particular problem or for all reported problems requiring an exchange under warranty is over the industry average of 5% for all sales, I'll be all ears.