Apple Opens Repair Program for iPhone 11 Touch Problems
Has your iPhone 11 become unresponsive to your touch? Apple has found that some iPhone 11 models manufactured between November 2019 and May 2020 may stop responding to touch input because of faulty display modules. The company has opened up a repair program to fix the problem for free. The repair program applies only to the iPhone 11 and not to any other iPhone model.
To see if your iPhone 11 is covered, you need to look up its serial number in Settings > General > About. Touch and hold the serial number until a Copy popover appears. Tap that to copy the serial number to the clipboard, which you can then paste into the form on Apple’s repair program page.
If your iPhone 11 has the problem and is covered, your safest option for service during the COVID-19 pandemic is to contact Apple Support and arrange mail-in service via the Apple Repair Center. You can also make an appointment at an Apple Retail Store (if there’s an open one nearby) or contact an Apple Authorized Service Provider.
Unfortunately, we’ve heard that some readers have been charged by Apple Authorized Service Providers for repairs that should have been covered by Apple. If you choose that route (and we encourage you to support local small businesses during these troubled times), make sure to call ahead and verify that the repair will be performed for free.
Anyone experienced similar issues with the iPhone SE 2020? Because I have …
Bummer! That’s probably just a hardware failure to get fixed under warranty.
To clarify, my iPhone only intermittently recognizes my fingerprint. Is that different from the 11 problem?
Completely.
The iPhone 11 problem relates to touch not working on the screen, whereas you’re hitting a problem with the Touch ID sensor. It might be a hardware problem, or you might want to try retraining your fingerprints. Some people also just have trouble with Touch ID.
Gripe and short rant here. I appreciate the fact that my iPhone 11 Pro Max is not affected and that Apple does these Repair Programs for free, but I have seen so many of these over the years for so many different products that it makes me wonder how thoroughly products are tested before they are released to the public. There is almost always a long list of these Repair Extension Programs at the bottom of the Apple Support page at any given time. I wonder how long it will be until we see one listed for the new M1 Macs??! End rant.
I’m not sure how more testing would reveal that a particular part in one model of an iPhone is going to fail in sufficient quantity within a year. The way Apple talks about these things much of the time, the problem was related to a bad batch of parts, certain display modules manufactured between November 2019 and May 2020 in this case.
Let’s take this problem as an example. Presumably, at some point after the release of the iPhone 11, some customers started reporting touch problems. Apple undoubtedly fixed or replaced them for free under warranty. But since we haven’t heard a huge outcry about this, it seems likely that the percentage of iPhone 11s suffering from the problem is very low, though clearly high enough to later generate a repair program.
Now that the iPhone 11 has been out for more than a year, it’s possible that customers who bought right away are out of warranty. Thus, if they experience this problem, Apple won’t fix or replace the iPhone for free, unless they also paid for AppleCare. But because the percentage of iPhone 11s suffering from the problem has been high enough, Apple essentially extends warranty coverage for this particular problem to keep customers happy.
I have a hard time seeing any concerns in how Apple is dealing with inevitable hardware problems. Manufacturing isn’t perfect, and it’s impossible to test devices in such a way as to simulate real-world usage over a period of months or years. I mean, I’m sure there are simulations, but at some point, when you use new technology, there’s no way to know exactly how it will age.
I understand what you are saying and I mentioned that I appreciate the fact that Apple does these repairs free of charge, though you still have to make the time to get the problem fixed. What concerns me is that I never hear of other companies having the type of issues that Apple has to fix. Like screens with touch issues on Samsung smartphones or batteries in Dell laptops. It is always Apple. Given the fact that I like to think that Apple makes the best products, that’s what is ultimately frustrating to me.
They all have problems, often much worse. I’ve had all kinds of inexplicable failures on phones from LG, Motorola and Samsung. And if the phone is out of warranty, you usually have no recourse other than to buy a new phone.
The difference is that all of Apple’s problems make headline news while nobody cares about anyone else’s problems.
If Motorola or ZTE have a bad problem and start replacing defective phones, the most you would hear from anyone is “we all know they’re junk, so why is this news?” But when Apple has a problem, everybody says “we thought these were perfect and they’re not, so you owe us restitution”.
The only times I can think of a non-Apple phone making headline news were the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 spontaneously catching fire and the first-generation of folding screens failing after a few days. Both of these were incredibly catastrophic failures.
But what makes headline news for an Apple product? The battery drains faster than expected. Or the facial recognition can’t see through a mask. Stuff that would go completely ignored on anybody else’s product.
From where I’m sitting, I can see seven HP desktop machines with ages spanning several years. Every last one of them has a hardware defect that causes the ethernet port to fail when handling heavy traffic loads. Known catastrophic defect since about 2015. Did the press cover it? Nope. Did HP recall and repair these machines? Nope. Would HP repair them if I asked? Nope. Would Apple have gotten a pass if these were iMacs? Nope.