iPhone 5 Power Button flaky since upgrade to iOS 7

I have the same issue - 14 months.

I thought it was a software issue and iOS7 would resolve it. Not so much. Called apple corporate and got an incredibly rude person who then referred me to another arrogant person who would not give me any useful information. Their only response is $269 to fix. It apparently it was my fault for assuming that a phone should last 2 years. I said that this was a well known issue with iphone 5 and they said that was not true.

This is my 4th gen of iphones and I've gotten applecare for all of the others and never had any issues so I guess it's my fault for trusting apple. Never again.

I also called the nearest apple store to get a quote to fix it and they do not give estimates over the phone so I would have to drive 150 miles (one way) to get an estimate that would most likely be the $269 anyway.

Apple started deleting some of the threads and posts here which to me is very unethical. That is just unbelievable. Bad action from Apple..

I live in a small university/market town in the middle of England (Loughborough, population 59,000). Before I managed to have my iPhone 5 replaced by Apple under EU consumer legislation, I had found an alternative as a possible "Plan B"! It's a local phone shop that carrys out repairs to iPhones etc. They quoted me £40 (about $65 inc taxes) to fix the sleep/wait button problem; they'd need the phone for about 2 hours to carry out the repair. This repairer was recommended to me by a friend who'd had a similar fault with an iPhone 4S successfully repaired by them.

For those of you who are still suffering the iPhone 5 sleep/wait button problem, try looking for a similar repair outfit in your neighbourhood. If we have at least 1 such outfit in a modest place like Loughborough, I'm sure there are plenty of others to be found elsewhere. Good luck!

Two iPhone 5s experiencing the same problem in my household. I don't know if its software or hardware but it started right after upgrad to iOS7.

How old are the iPhone 5s? If they are about 12-14 months old it's a good chance that they are suffering hardware faults like my iPhone 5! Several people have reported from Apple staff that the iPhone 5 is known have a higher rate of failure with the sleep/wake switch than other iPhone models.

If you're in the EU you should be covered by the 2-year (minimum) rule and you can get the supplier of the iPhones to have them repaired/replaced for free. Remember that the EU rule applies to the supplier, not the manufacturer unless they are the same.

I just talked to an agent from Apple. Apparently they do not accept this as their fault. They expect their product to be this cheap and they do not stand behind their product. That is not what we all thought about Apple for years. Here's the chat transcript:

Now Chatting with Alexander

Agent: Thanks for contacting AppleCare chat support. My name is Austin. Please give me a moment to look over your information.

Agent: Please note: In the event that we get disconnected it's likely due to a system or connection issue. It is never our intent to disconnect from you. If you do get disconnected, please chat us back or call and refer to the case number on the email that you've already received.

Hi Austin

Agent: Hi XXXX!

Agent: How are you today?

not so good, contacting regarding the power button issue on my iphone 5

just got back from Apple Store and they told me I need to pay $269 to get it replaced with a refurbished phone

Agent: Oh my, I’m happy to see what I can do for you.

Thanks, This is very upseting me.. Did not expect this from Apple

Agent: I can understand where you are coming from.

Agent: Let me take a look at the repair cost on that phone real quick and see what the repair cost would be.

ok

Agent: I did take a look at this. That is the cost for the repair tho. This would also come with a 90 warranty on the replacement device as well though.

well, Thats what makes me mad

I looked around the discussion forums on Apple

and seems like this is a defect on the phone rather than an incident

Im happy to refer you to lots of posts from people on the forums with the same issue

Agent: We defiantly don’t want to have you mad. We want to make sure that you have a quality product.

$700 phone that wears out in 13 month is not a quality product

Every company stands behind their product and if they see a common problem they recall for a complimentary fix

Agent: Let me see if I can get you in touch with a senior agent and see if there is anything that they can do for you.

I would expect Apple to be the first in the line of that habit

Thanks

Agent: It will be just another few minutes.

no problem

Agent: I’m going to bring you over to Alexander now. Thanks so much for you time.

Agent: Thanks for contacting iOS. My name is Alexander. Please give me a moment to look over your information.

Agent: You are now being connected to another Advisor. Please standby.

Agent: Now Chatting with Alexander

OK Thanks

Agent: I understand there is an issue with the sleep/wake button on your iPhone 5 not working properly?

Correct

Agent: I am sorry to hear that. I know button issues can be very annoying.

Agent: When did that first start happening?

about a week ago

and I did a search online and came to find out that the problem is very common

went to Apple Store today and they told me I need to pay $269 to get it replaced

Agent: Certainly of the number of ways an iPhone can have an issue a problem with one of the external parts is one of the more common ones.

Where I took a very good care of my phone, and did not expect to have this at least before my contract expires

Agent: Were you using a hard case with your iPhone by any chance?

and from discussion forums this seems to be very common among users

my phone has always been covered with a bumper that has an opening around the buttons

so nothing other than normal finger touch

Agent: It is very hard to get a feeling for how common an issue is from our discussions. We have sold tens of millions of phones and even a fair sized thread can be a very small percentage of issues.

thats considering the percentage of people that actually go to the discussion forums. And this problem being fairly new

This apparently starts happening after 13-14 months of usage

only early adopter experiencing this issue now

I am sure the number will grow very soon

Agent: Our engineers keep an eye out for issues like this but I have not seen any more or less issues with switches than there has been over time.

This is very sad, a $700 phone that is wearing out in 13 months, apparently means the part is not manufactured to the spec that it needed to be

Apple needs to have an explanation for this

Agent: Many button or switch issues happen with wear and tear or accidental damage. We certainly do our best to make the phone as well as we can for the price, and I would hazard that our quality is far higher than any similarly priced phone.

its either my misuse, or Apple's defect

Your statement could be true to many of us but this is changing

Apple used to be very customer service oriented but not anymore

The part is $4.99 that can be replaced by a tach

simply because this cannot be done at Apple Store, we are asked to pay $269

Agent: I do apologize that your phone is experiencing a hardware issue out of the warranty. We do offer a coverage plan called AppleCare which does cover manufacturer defects during a second year of ownership. Did you purchase that by any chance or any sort of carrier coverage?

and yet the problem is not due to user's fault

or maybe all these users having problem are misusing their devices

No and I will never buy such coverage

Agent: I have an iPhone 5 myself and I have highly recommended it to all my friends and family. I do not believe there is any systemic part issue. It is unfortunate there is an issue with your phone but without that additional coverage for situations like this we still have the out of warranty service options.

You are telling your users that they need to buy coverage to cover Apple's defective devices?

How long have you had your phone?

Agent: I would say probably in the 8 month range, but I would still buy it again today even working in tech support. It is one of the best products we have ever made.

so you are very early to see this issue

you WILL see this in the month of 13-14

just like everyone else

The product that wears out this early is definately not well made

Agent: I can certainly log the issue here. We will certainly keep an eye out for any trends.

I had a 3GS for 3 years

never had any issues

had iPhone 4S never had any issues

now all of the sudden iPhone 5 is developing this issue?

have you seen all the growing threads about this?

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5401951?start=45&tstart=0

Agent: I can also provide a work around if you do not wish to have your phone serviced for this issue. There is a feature called assistive touch which provides a virtual home button.

This is just one of them

I know the workaround

that is not what I want from my $700 phone

assistive touch is not a workaround for a defect

if I had broken my phone then I would have used that option

Agent: Are you having the same issue mentioned where parts of the button are not working properly?

The hate is growing for me and other users. Of course this is the begining, but I would this as lack of customer appreciation

yes, it is intermittent now

sometimes works sometimes doesnt

there are a lot more threads than just that one

Agent: We do have agents that watch the Apple discussions and report any trends to our engineering team.

see this one: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5564147?start=15&tstart=0

see comments from people just started having this problem in last month

we are the people that bought the phone early when it was launched

Had I experienced this before 12 month I would have get it replaced under warranty

but the sad part is that this problem does not appear until month of 13-14

Agent: Certainly it would have been much better if the issue had happened while still in the warranty. The warranty coverage would have covered this without issue.

maybe a heavy user get it earlier but seems like the regular usage causes the button to wear out after 13-14 months

Agent: While I agree AppleCare is seldom necessary it does cover unexpected issues like this when they happen beyond that first 12 month period.

well, I am sure you are educated like I am

warranty is one thing, recall for a defect is another thing

My car is covered for 36 months

but even afte 10 years, if they find out that a part is defective, they recall to replace the defective part

just like other things Apple recalls like the back-cover of the MacBook

Agent: Certainly if we do discover there is an issue an recall a part we would publish that on our support web site. However I am not aware of any recall for any iPhone issue there has been outside of the USB adapters.

I know, and that is what everyone is so angry

IF your support method is that, all users are wrong, then go for it

I will put this chat log for larger voices out there to see

maybe my voice is not as strong as some others out there

but expect a big action from users

Agent: Parts do fail sometimes, while in warranty or out of warranty. Apple certainly agrees to cover anything under the warranty period.

Agent: At this time engineering has not advised us of problems that would include additional hardware coverage .

Apple would not be Apple without their users

certainly a bad route

I understand your point

as an agent you can do so much

And my intention is to get my voice as loud as possibe in a professional way that apple expects, Contacting support

Agent: I agree it is not ideal that your phone has an issue. I never want any of our customers to need to call in.

and if this does not work then we know the support is simply rejecting users

Agent: Certainly contact me does generate a case which has an impact that our engineers can become aware of any trends to examine more closely.

I would sit and watch what happens to my case, I would like to at least get an explanation about this issue

like I have used the button too many times?

Im sure you are laughing on the other side too

Agent: Apple seldom reveals the results of any investigation. The Antenna issue is the only one I am aware of.

but wait you have 5-6 months to go

Agent: Certainly not. I had a home button issue on my iPhone 4 and I had to use that assistive touch feature for nearly a year before I was elegible for my update.

and I expect the threads to be flooded by then

so you call that a quality product?

I doubt it

Agent: I don’t take your issues lightly and if it turns out to be a design flaw Apple will certainly address that, but for batch of part issues we have service options to take care of those situations.

Well I guess we need to end this chat

it simply means Apple Support is just not helping

and I am sure you agree with that

I am logging this for my case too

just so you are aware of it

nothing to hide

Agent: I can offer the same options we offer all our customers. You can certainly get an email of this chat when it is finished.

I will.

I understand your limits, but wanted to make sure when people's posts get deleted and asked to contact support

that means to just make people quiet

thats bad sir

Agent: I can also suggest leaving feedback at https://www.apple.com/feedback

bad for Apple

Thanks

Have a great night (if it is your night too)

I already did leave a feedback

Agent: There is also a mailing address if you want to go that way. Both are reviewed at corporate headquarters.

Apple Inc

ATTN: Customer Care

1 Infinite Loop

Cupertino, CA. 95014

sure I will put this in the mail too.

and goodluck with your phone, just remember this day when your button stops working

Agent: I will certainly add my voice if that time comes.

Thanks

Agent: Thank you for taking the time to chat with me today. Again, my name is Alex and the case number is XXXXXXX.

Appreciate your response

thanks

Apple may record and retain the following conversation for quality control and training purposes.

End Chat

I have the same issue. Sleep/Power button stopped working 13 months. Very frustrating. Was just barely out of warranty and told to pay $269 for a new phone to fix the issue. Definitely a flawed design that Apple needs to address.

Same problem here, happened immediately after iOS7 upgrade. I have a very hard time believing that all of these users somehow miraculously experienced a hardware failure just as they upgraded to iOS7.

Even if this *is* a hardware problem, it is somehow being exacerbated by the new iOS. Perhaps the new iOS changed some sort of sensitivity setting to prevent accidental touches of the button?

Keep posting here and contacting customer support about the problem, maybe someone will actually look into it and stop telling us to replace our 1-year old phones.

Apple I am really disappointed with this problem! I had a iPhone 3GS and the switch went on it so I had to turn of the device off through software. I upgraded to a iPhone 5 and now this problem is appearing on this device as well. It takes me 3-5 tries to turn off my iPhone 5.

This past year I bought an iPhone 5, MacBook Pro Retina, iPad Mini Retina, AppleTV, Time Capsule and numerous other Apple products. I not sure whether my iPhone is under warranty or not but I am going to be ****** if I have to pay to get this fixed.

I moved to Apple Products because I thought other vendors built inferior products. I will move away from Apple just as fast as I move to them.

Gary E. Smith

My power button has progressively gotten harder to use over the last month. Now I have to push it on the Left side for it to work. I made a trip to the apple store(1hour away)last week and was told I had to come back since they didn't have any appointments. The apple sales person told me when I came back it would be a short visit they would just switch out my phone because there is no fix for the power button and it would be free. He also mentioned this happens a lot on the iphone 5. So I made an appointment and returned today. Today the story is the phone is out of warranty by less than 2 months and would cost me $169 to replace it with the same phone that would probably have the same issue in a couple months. The sales associate got loud and rude when i questioned why the story had changed from the previous week. My husband and I have been loyal Apple users for years(multiple iPads,2 iPad Minis, 2 Mac book Pro's, iMac and iPhones) buying and upgrading the day a new product is released. I have sworn by apple and talked friends into Apple products.

Today all that changes. I'm saddened that Apples quality and superior customer service has declined.

I refuse to pay more money for an inferior product. I will go back to using my IPhone 4 until my contract is up and then look at android choices.

Apple better get it together or they will end up losing a lot of business.

My IPhone 3GS had a similar problem where the power button stopped working : but that was after I had had the phone for almost 3 years. now the iphone 5 power button has stopped working after I switched to ios 7 two months back . Any recall ? This will be my last Apple device - never again. My daughter has already switched to android.. obviously this phone wont work much longer - will switch to Samsung .

Another thing to take into consideration is that many people also have this happen before the warranty is up, or they have the extended warranty, so Apple replaces it with a brand new IPhone. These people are very excited and satisfied, so we do not see them raising a fuss. The guy next to me at crApple Care had the same issue with his phone that was only a few months old. I watched them replace it and the guy was very happy and satisfied. When his new phone goes out in a year, he will not be happy then.

The only reason mine took so long to go out is because I am a light user. Many are going out under 12 months. We just don't hear from them because they are under warranty.

Hi Franco,

I believe your post was deleted here since it was probably a reply to my post that was also deleted. I do respect you and your point of view but I believe there are many points that you are missing here. Please read my comments between your original post here with underline:

Here's what you said:

I think moderator here are doing exactly like they do on any other website, They moderate.

I agree. but I did not try to take anything out of moderation. I was instructed by another moderator to not discuss product issues here since this is a place to ask questions and get answers. So my plan was just to take this discussion some place else. Apparently most of these people here do not know they are violating the rules by reporting their issues here. I do not think I did anything wrong.

I have not read your post, but creating a username iPhoneDefect might not have help you.

I agree. I chose that to be anonymous but I agree. I could have chosen a better one. You are right.

Over the year I have learn that even when things go wrong, be patient, be nice, and thing will be ok.

Patience has limits too. I have been dealing with all levels of Apple representatives over the past 2 months. I have been patient, nice and kind. Did not work. THAT is what I did not expect from Apple. I did not want to take this route either. Believe me.

My phone was change yesterday, yes it was under warranty.

Good for you. Lucky you.

I still feel it was started by a software problem, which cause me to press harder on the button, to the point of breaking it. I thing I have found the problematic software, but I am not sure, It is an App that use GPS in the Background. if any of you can relate to that maybe, together we will help the programmer to modify it's software.

Software does not define any sensitivity level when the button is mechanical. I am a software engineer with a minor in electronics. Trust me on this one.

For the last 6 years, all i do is help people with Apple Product, Mac, iPhone, iPad etc.

I am glad you do this. The comunity needs and respects people like you. I do respect you too.

How many people I help with this problem: one... me.

No other people I know who use iPhone have this problem, except those in this discussion.

That is not a lot.

You are repeating what customer service told me too. In fact when I posted here about what I was told by customer service, my post was deleted. I wonder if they fire that person too? maybe..

The problem starts on month 13-14 or later depending on the usage level. Considering the release date of iPhone 5 in late september 2012, we are just at the beginning of 13-14 month timeframe. So unless you are a heavy user, you may not see this issue until about 13-14 months. Most people that are complaining now are the people that bought the phone very early. We will see if the number grows over time or not. Hopefully I can come back here and this post is still here by then.

Just like you, I have bough many computers, tv, shoes, pens, etc.

I am talking about those items that sold millions every year. Yes some of them break earlier than expected.

Each item has an expected lifetime. If it is cheaper, it probably will break sooner. but every item is designed to work for what it is designed for as long as what it was planned for.

I pay Premium price for a Sony TV, I have never saw a TV beeing change for free if a problem arise after the warranty. Same thing for a Car. After the warranty you pay.

You hit the right spot but missing a point here. I buy a car. No warranty exchanges my car. I agree. But if it breaks, they stand behind their car and offer to fix it and if it is out of warranty, I pay for it. This is very common. But when many people complain about the same exact issue, the company tries to find out about the cause and if they find out that a part is defective, they do re-call their cars. Even if that defect only affects a very small group of people. I am sure this has happened to you too. Next time you walk to a store, look for a re-call board. You will see a lot of products being recalled for complementary repair or replacement.

What Apple offers is like your car has a problem with the push start button and the company is asking you to pay 1/3 of the price of your car to give you a used/recertified car which does not have any problems with the push star button.

Why do we expect more from Apple, I dont know but I do know that I always take the Extended warranty.

I do it for case like this.

We do not expect anything extraordinary from Apple. Just to stand behind their product and offer at least a reasonable repair option. The part is being sold online for $4 and there is an instruction of how to replace it. I just cannot justify $269 price mark for the exchange. Our devices are going back to Apple, get repaired and given to the next person that having this problem. $269 ? Really? You may not think $269 is expensive but that is 1/3 of the price of the handset. For people that get the phone with contract, that is more than what they paid upfront. I think this is outrageous. If any company treats us like Apple does now, I would never ever shop from them. I think if your read the posts here, you get the theme of how others think.

Extended warranty is great. But that is normally being offered as an extra peace of mind and usually is good for accidental damages, like breaking the glass or misues. This issue is not caused by any of that. If a part is designed to be pushed it has to be able to be pushed as many times as they consider normal usage over the lifetime of that product. I do not believe they designed the phone with a lifetime of 12 months. IF they did, well then it is a substandard product. IF not then the part is defective. Makes sense?

Thanks again, hope this remains here.

Software does not define any sensitivity level when the button is mechanical. I am a software engineer with a minor in electronics. Trust me on this one.

It could be done, as they did with playstation 3 with button with a resolution of 256 level (sorry for my english) but could be use as a on/off button (fire button).

but that not what I meant.

Here two things I saw after iOS 7.

1.

As soon as I installed iOS 7 on my iphone, I though they put delay (easily done, Trust me on that, I am an engineer too :-) and a programmer since 1979 )

I though the delay was to avoid shutting down the screen on accidental touch of the button, which happen to me very often on my old iPad while rotating it.

Maybe it is just my perception, I could be wrong.

but I use my phone a Lot, many hour a day, almost never to talk :-)

I even have a 5000 mAh extra battery because I can't get through the day.

2.

Every morning I could do ScreenShot, without any problem, then suddenly, during the day, after using many Apps, I could rarely do it anymore. I felt the system was overloaded with work, so the harware interrupt would be process later. Sometimes I would close all my app, restart, and it would be ok.

Sometime not. Because it did not work, I would press Harder and Harder, causing the mechanical failure.

Smell like software problem to me

dont worry, even Apple Genius did not believe me :-)

Yesterday, The new phone they gave me had iOS 6.x on it,

I was happy with the button But again, after I updated it to iOS 7 , the button feel like i need to press longer to get the screen to close.

Again, I might be wrong but at least the person who started this discussion think so too.

Franco, Thanks for your response. I should say, I agree that the problem could possibly be related to the fact that the button interrupt signal cannot switch the phone to standby if the phone CPU is utilized 100% but that should freeze your phone. Just like when your keyboard is unresponsive when your computer CPU is used 100%. This very well could happen if there is a major OS issue on the iOS7 too. So could be iOS7 related. At least mine started to do this about a month before iOS7 update but gradually gotten worse and now I've been using the assistive touch and it works perfectly. This tells me my iOS7 (software level) is capable of doing what the button can't. Maybe you should try that and see if you have the same issue with assistive touch option. Having said that, we maybe talking about two different issues too. Either way, this is something that Apple needs to address not my hard earned $269.