Apple iPhone 4: Proximity Sensors Possibly Causing Problems During Phone Calls

Bill Malchisky  June 29 2010 11:19:36 PM

A CNET article is reporting that scores of support request posts on the issue of proximity sensors turning the screen black (proper behavior) during calls, but leaving the phone operational. This is causing various issues for people such as inadvertently disconnecting, muting the call, invoking unplanned conference calls or even alternate application launches.

At the time of this writing, the Apple Support Discussion Forums topic on this issue is over 22 pages, grown by 10% since CNET posted their article. If you have an iPhone 4 and are experiencing this issue, I wish you well in getting rid of this annoyance. It does not appear to be a fun scenario for the afflicted user set.

Although the very brief CNET article offers a few things to try, none are known to reliably fix the problem. But their suggestions may offer some relief for your specific scenario.

In quickly perusing the forums, it appears that the posters are clear this never happened on their 3gs model, just that it is a hardware issue.
On page 18 (at time of writing), a comment from 'djporter' provides a solution -- full phone replacement. This supports the final conclusion drawn in the CNET article.

"well guys i think it is a hardware issue,, i went to the store and got it switched out and it is working great.. no problems here anymore..thanks guys at the apple store for making it very painless..good luck to the rest of you guys..if i were you i would get it switched out asap.. before they run out at your store" -- djporter, Posted: Jun 28, 2010 1:53 PM  

Having stated this, a mass market shakeout of an initial sales success of 1.7M units, should be expeced to generate some problems. Though it does seem that the community and Apple are handling it well.

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