Apple offered on Thursday to help iPhone 6 Plus owners solve the “touch disease” afflicting their gadgets, but it comes with a hefty price of $149. The multi-touch repair program seeks to address flickering displays or multi-touch issues encountered by smartphone owners.
Those issues, according to an iFixit report published in early 2016, are because of the chips inside the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, released in 2014, which cause the screen to interact with the user’s touch inputs. The Touch IC Chips are connected to the main board of the iPhone with small soldered balls, Fortune reported.
Touch Functionality Lost
When the balls, over time crack and begin to lose contact between the display and the board, the touch of the two iPhone models is lost. Eventually, all touch functionality is lost as the contact problem worsens.
To address the problem, Apple advised phone owners to instead buy a new iPhone at full price which angered gadget owners. Some phone owners in California, Utah and Canada filed class action lawsuits against the Cupertino-based tech giant, but the cases remain unresolved.
However, despite the publication of the program on Apple’s Support page, the company was silent on the “touch disease” which it did not use the word in the support document that announced the program. In the support document, Apple said the problem occurs if the iPhone 6 Plus is dropped several times on a hard surface and further causes stress on the gadget.
“Touch Disease” Affects Phones In Cases
But Kyle Wiens, CEO of iFixit, a repair site, said the “touch disease” problems were experienced by handheld units of the company that were not dropped. “We have seen this problem on phones that have never been dropped. And in phones that have lived their entire lives protected in cases,” Wiens insisted.
Besides charging iPhone 6 Plus owners $149 to remedy the “Touch Disease,” Apple offered to reimburse cellphone owners the full price for a replacement if the problem occurs again. The reimbursement would be the difference between what the customer paid for fixing the problem and $149.
But Apple would only repair iPhone 6 Plus if the device’s screen is not cracked and the phone is in working order, according to CNN. Stay tuned to GamenGuide for the latest news and updates about the iPhone 6 Plus Touch Disease!
