The Brick


Pictured above, is my wife’s iPhone 4 in its current state. That is to say that its current state is not working. As to why, well that’s still sort of a mystery.

On the weekends, my wife and I drop my son off with my folks so that he can spend a little bit of time bonding with the grandparents while we get some work done. I went to pick him up yesterday, and on my way home, I figured I’d give my wife a ring so that she knew what was going on. I dialed her number, and it rang four times, then went to voicemail. Oh well, she was probably cooking and couldn’t get to the phone or something, so no big deal. 10 minutes later I tried again, with no answer. Huh. Weird. Just as I’m about to pull into the driveway, I get a call from the wife. “Hey, I’m on the house phone. My iPhone won’t turn on!”

I get home and check out the phone. Sure enough, no lights, no screen, nothing. Well, my wife is a bit infamous for letting her phone run dead, so I figured some time on the charger might fix things. An hour later, no response. OK, maybe it’s a thermal thing – we do live in Arizona, after all. I wait a few hours with the phone near a fan, and no luck. From everything I can tell, the phone is bricked.

Now the big question is why. We’ve never installed anything weird on the phone, and there’s no apparent reason why this would happen. I shined a flashlight down the headphone jack to see if the water sensor was tripped, and it wasn’t. Not that I expected my wife to submerge her phone or anything, but maybe she had it in the room when she showered once and the steam tripped the sensor. Turns out, none of those things were the case.

With this knowledge in my hand – or lack, thereof – I’ve scheduled an appointment with the Genius Bar, and we’ll be down there in an hour or so. I’m *thrilled* about this development, as I’m sure you can imagine. I guess w’ll see how it goes, and as usual, I’ll keep everyone updated.


Kokou Adzo

Kokou Adzo is a stalwart in the tech journalism community, has been chronicling the ever-evolving world of Apple products and innovations for over a decade. As a Senior Author at Apple Gazette, Kokou combines a deep passion for technology with an innate ability to translate complex tech jargon into relatable insights for everyday users.

7 Comments

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  1. This is blogworthy?

    Things break. You take it back to the store and they give you a new one. Hardly worthy of 4-5 paragraphs of a blog entry. Has applegazette become a facebook wall?

  2. Ummm…. don’t suppose you bothered to try a Hard Reset: hold both the Sleep/Wake button and the Home button for about ten seconds. The Apple logo should eventually appear, and start the device normally.

  3. Two things you could try – since I already know a Hard Reset doesn’t work:

    (1) Restore from an iTunes backup. Never did this myself, but cable it up to iTunes and I think you either get a button for the restore or can command-click to it. (And if I’m wrong a simple Google on it should do the trick.

    (1b) Just realized – you didn’t say if you tried to cable it up to iTunes. Have you? Did iTunes recognize it?

    (2) Return it. Since it’s 7/12 you are *well* within the 30 day return. Exchange it, or if not pay the restocking fee.

    Tell us how it goes!