Owners of Apple iPhone 6 and 6 Plus smartphones as their devices might fall victim to an issue dubbed ‘Touch Disease’. According to a report by iFixit, some of the devices are showing a flickering grey bar at the top of their screens, while the display itself is unresponsive. The report also states, “Apple’s aware there’s a hardware issue with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus—but they aren’t doing anything about it.”
As per iFixit, replacing the touchscreen will not resolve the issue and the flickering grey bar will eventually show up on the new screen as well. This is because the problem isn’t the screen, but rather, the two touchscreen controller chips (Touch IC) that are located on the logic board inside the phone. These two chips are responsible for translating the touch inputs made by the user. So if there is a problem with these chips, the phone will not be be to correctly process the touch information.
The reason behind this issue seems to go back to the bendgate issue that the phones, especially the larger iPhone 6 Plus were faced with around their launch. The bending of the phone puts pressure on the logic board. The Touch ICs are connected to the board via small solder balls. As the phone bends and flexes, these balls can crack or break, leading to a disconnection with the board.
If you are one of the people facing the problem, one of the solutions mentioned is trying to twist the phone as putting pressure on the screen might make the chip make full contact with the board again. However, not only is this just a temporary fix, but it is also a little risky as it might break the phone. The only permanent fix seems to be to replace the phone, logic board, or both Touch ICs.
Main image source: iFixit