[ibook_steve]

I'm sure this has been asked and I'm pretty sure I have to go to an Apple store, but here goes.

I recently got a refurbished 8GB iPod Touch 2G. It's great. I love it. Two problems, one minor, the other more major:

1) Wireless dropouts: I've seen a number of reports on this. It seems to be completely random. Turning wifi off then back on sometimes works, but not always. Restarting my AEBS works as well. Weird.

2) Dead touchscreen zone: big problem! If I'm in Safari and tilt the phone 90 degrees counterclockwise so that the back/forward and bookmarks buttons are on the left side of the screen, none of them work. I also can't type the number "1" when in the standard orientation since it lives in that area: a thin strip down the left side of the screen. It would be sporadic and restarting the device would fix it, but no longer. Before I go to an Apple store, anybody have any other ideas? I've done the whole reset settings, restore iPod procedure.

Thanks,
Steve

[Simon]

Originally Posted by ibook_steve 

1) Wireless dropouts: I've seen a number of reports on this. It seems to be completely random. Turning wifi off then back on sometimes works, but not always. Restarting my AEBS works as well. Weird.

What wifi settings? I use 802.11g/n, WPA2, interference robustness on, MAC address filtering, hidden SSID and see no such dropouts on iPhones and iPod touches.

2) Dead touchscreen zone: big problem! If I'm in Safari and tilt the phone 90 degrees counterclockwise so that the back/forward and bookmarks buttons are on the left side of the screen, none of them work. I also can't type the number "1" when in the standard orientation since it lives in that area: a thin strip down the left side of the screen. It would be sporadic and restarting the device would fix it, but no longer. Before I go to an Apple store, anybody have any other ideas? I've done the whole reset settings, restore iPod procedure.

It's a lemon. Definitely not the way it should be. Have it replaced or at least fixed.

[ibook_steve]

Yet another reason why I love Apple: I went in to the Apple store Friday night expecting to have to leave my Touch there to be repaired. Instead, they gave me a brand new Touch! So my $170 refurbished Touch from Woot turned into a brand new Touch at least $50 under! I'm happy!

Steve

[Hg2491]

Wow you are certainly lucky. I don't think any other company would exchange a refurbished item with a new one. Oh you got to love Apple. I got a 2-year-old, wear-down MacBook exchange with a new one . (It had problems, so it was a legit exchange)

[Simon]

Congrats!
Great news. Great customer service.

Out of curiosity, are iPods with bad screens usually repaired at all when you bring them to an Apple store? Or do they just swap them with refurbs?

[kylef]

I tend to get wireless dropouts on my 3G as well (and I did on my 2G). It's pretty annoying seeing as it reverts back to GPRS of all things, even though my Wi-Fi reception might be pretty good.

Simon - they give out refurbs like crazy here. Pretty much every time I am in the store I see someone with a faulty iPhone or iPod and it's just an immediate refurb, no repair. They have a device to check for water in iPods (colour turns red if there is water) and I watched one guy look, confirm that there was water and just said "yeah I think that's a bit of red fluff. Here's a refurb one". I'm not saying this is a bad thing, just thought it was quite interesting. Very kind of them.

[Phileas]

My iPhone stopped recognizing the charger on Saturday morning. Plugged it in, nothing happened. Went to the Apple Store, got it swapped out for a brand new model within 20 minutes. Great service.