iPhone 6 Owners Sue Apple Over 'Touch Disease' The alleged design defect has left hundreds of iPhones unresponsive to physical contact.
By Stephanie Mlot •
This story originally appeared on PCMag
iPhone 6 users have sued Apple over a design defect dubbed "Touch Disease."
According to a class-action suit, filed last week in California, the company concealed a material design defect that causes iPhone 6 and 6 Plus touch screens to become unresponsive.
Citing iPhone repair pros, teardown experts iFixit last month reported a slew of problems caused by a strain on the handset's internal touch-screen chips. The devices' motherboard contains two touch-screen controller chips (touch IC chips) responsible for converting taps and swipes into digital actions.
But those chips, the lawsuit says, are not properly secured to the board, and are likely to fail after normal wear and tear. Once the defect manifests, the gadget becomes little more than a sleek paperweight. Users can no longer operate downloaded apps or input text, can't write texts, take pictures, play music or use GPS navigation.
"Apple has long been aware of the defective iPhones," the lawsuit says. "Apple failed to adequately research, design, test and/or manufacture the iPhones before warranting, advertising, promoting, marketing and selling" them, leading to an "ascertainable loss" of money, property or value.
Apple did not immediately respond to PCMag's request for comment.
Hopefully "Touch Disease" was not the reason a Frenchman destroyed a handful of iDevices at an Apple Store in Dijon.
