The iPhone’s “Touch Disease” can be cured by Apple—if you’re willing to pay for it.
Apple on Thursday published a Support page on its site that says it’ll offer a “multitouch repair program for iPhone 6 Plus.” The support document says Apple will repair any iPhone 6 Plus owner’s device if they’re seeing the smartphone “exhibit display flickering or multi-touch issues.”
But there’s a catch: Apple is charging $149 to make the repair.
Earlier this year, hardware-repair company iFixit published a report, saying that the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus released in 2014 are suffering from what it called, “Touch Disease.” The company found in its testing that the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus come with chips that sit inside the device that permit the screen to interact with a user’s touch inputs. Those chips, called Touch IC Chips, connect to the iPhone’s main board with small soldered balls. Over time, iFixit says, those balls can crack and start to lose contact between the display and the board. As it gets worse, the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus could lose all touch functionality.
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Many iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus users have complained of the problem over the last several months, and criticized Apple for forcing them to buy a new iPhone at full price in order to address their problem. Several lawsuits were also launched, citing Apple’s policy in response to Touch Disease.
Apple has largely remained silent on the Touch Disease and didn’t mention the term in its support document announcing its new program.
The support document also appears to differ in notable ways from user accounts, as well as the investigation conducted by iFixit.
For one, iFixit and users say that the iPhone 6 is also affected by the flaw, but Apple says it will only replace the iPhone 6 Plus. What’s more, Apple was clear in its support document that the Touch Disease occurs when the iPhone 6 Plus is “dropped multiple times on a hard surface and then incurring further stress on the device.” However, iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens said in a statement in response to Apple’s move on Thursday that his company experience the problem on devices that hadn’t been dropped.
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“Apple is correct that dropping the device onto a hard surface could cause this issue,” Wiens said. “But that’s not the only cause: 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 also criticized Apple for not acknowledging that the problem is caused by a “manufacturing defect” and noted that “many iPhone 6 owners have also been affected.”
Now that Apple (AAPL) is charging $149 to fix Touch Disease on the iPhone 6 Plus, the company will also issue a reimbursement to anyone who paid full price for a replacement for the same problem. The reimbursement amount will equal the difference between the amount affected customers paid for fix and $149.
Apple did not respond to a request for comment on the program.