TUAW Tips: 25 ways to check the hardware on your iPhone 4

I received my second replacement iPhone 4 yesterday. Given the problems had both my first iPhone 4 units, I wanted to make absolutely sure, in as little time as possible that have this replacement nothing wrong with it. Before I even took it up from the shop, I began compiling a list of things I needed to test and how I would do it.

What I came out, is a series of hardware checks that any legal after taking an iPhone 4 out of the box and sync it to perform for the first time. This is by no means the only way to test an iPhone 4's hardware failure and there are probably more comprehensive methods, but the following procedure is basic enough for most users to follow. Plus, it should not catch any glaring hardware defects in a 4 iPhone immediately. Click "More" to read the checklist.

What do you check before you synchronize with iTunes for the first time:

Jacket: Check for cracks in the glass, visible gaps, and loose connections. The phone should be strong, without "to" anywhere - a properly constructed iPhone 4 is pretty much a solid glass / steel plate. In particular, the front and rear glass to the stainless steel-band antenna flush. All gaps are not only allow dust into the iPhone, but also act as a pivot point, reducing the structural integrity of the glass and to break it more like an accidental drop. Such gaps are both incredibly rare (I'm probably the only guy "Lucky" enough to be hit with this problem twice) and very difficult to recognize. Hold the iPhone in landscape mode with a strong light source in the background. As long as you do not see anything like this, you're good to go:

Small hole, big problem

Home / Sleep keys: Another article you can test before syncing the iPhone, you should perform their intended function of these keys immediately and should not be excessively loose or too sticky. A tiny wobble or a little "clickiness" in the two keys is nothing to fear but if your sleep is key to clatter into the housing needs Herculean task or pressure so that it works, it is a problem.

Vibration alarm switch / motor: Flick the switch to the iPhone brought into vibration. The button should glide smoothly, and you should immediately feel the phone vibrate motor kick in, the successful activation.

Leave during the first sync with iTunes to check:

Dock connector: If there is something wrong with the dock connector, you will know immediately, either your iPhone will not sync with the computer, or it will not charge.

Flash memory: It's not very often, but when the iPhone damaged in the flash memory chips, this could show up as errors sync in iTunes. Poor synchronization is not enough to the problem on the iPhone itself - iTunes PIN is a tricky beast at the best of times - but if you do not get to sync to the iPhone successfully, despite numerous attempts and some basic iTunes troubleshooting are, can bad flash his memory in the iPhone the culprit. The easiest way, the memory test is to use it, fill your iPhone with as much media as you can during the first synchronization. If you have an iPhone 32 GB 4, now have a good time to go do something else for an hour or two, because a lot of data sync, that takes a while.

What one review after syncing with iTunes:

Volume keys: it is immediately obvious if this will not work. Note that a little play from side to side "in these keys is normal and not fret about.

Headphone Jack: Plug the headphones came with the iPhone. It should not wobble in the bush at all. You should hear both sound headphone while playing media, and if you do not plug in another set of headphones to make sure it is not a problem rather than a headphone jack problem. Test the headphone control also, play / pause, track forward / back, VoiceOver, and volume up / down, all function normally. VoiceOver should be able to pick up your voice from the headset microphone.

Camera: Verify that the shutter opens and closes on the front and rear-facing cameras, by still photos with the two. Test the iPhone's "Tap to focus" function with the objective of the camera on a scene with significant differences in the distance / brightness - a bright window in the background of a dark room, for example - and make sure the camera will focus / brightness according to where you tap the screen. Check the photos for obvious problems such as discoloration, pixellation, banding, etc. - do not you go to a museum-quality images from the iPhone 4 of the 5-megapixel sensor to get, but the photos must be free of glaring, obvious flaws. Test that the LED flash when taking photos by the upper-left corner of the screen that reads to the flash-mode "on." Now test both cameras again by video with them. Video from both cameras should be free from stuttering, and of course you should be able to hear sound when you play the video.

Accelerometer, you can test the function of the accelerometers in the same time as the camera, on-screen controls should change position as you tilt the iPhone from portrait to landscape. Next you open any application, text input, enter a few characters accepted, and then shake the iPhone, a pop-up dialog should immediately asked if you Undo command to cancel or.

Antennas:

3G: If you are in an area with 3G service, it should pick up a signal the iPhone without requiring you to do something. Test your data with some basic browsing in Safari, speeds, depending on how good your signal / network is different, but if you have a 3G connection, you should not to several minutes to load even complex pages, wait. Try to test the temptation to avoid the "Death Grip" phenomenon, not only these vary from network to network, cell-cell site to site, I found it varies from phone to phone. My first iPhone 4, purchased just over two weeks, definitely exhibited signal loss in "Death Grip" mode, but my new iPhone does not drop signal to all four, no matter how I hold it.

EDGE / GPRS: Even if you have a 3G signal, it is an easy way to test whether you can also pick up signals at a slower EDGE / GPRS connection when necessary. Go to Settings> General> Network and set Enable 3G to Off. Your iPhone must fall back to EDGE / GPRS in seconds. Test your data again by example in Safari, but be aware that the connection speed is almost unbearable in EDGE and GPRS, but useless.

GPS: Open the map app and tap the arrow icon in the lower left corner. Unless you are within a structure with thick walls or ceilings, should be a blue dot appears, or relatively close to your current position almost immediately. The iPhone 4 GPS antenna is also accurate and efficient than the iPhone in earlier - my iPhone 3G was rarely able to find me at all when I was outside - so you should show your position in Maps is quite fast in most cases. If not try again, outside with a clear view of the sky when you get your iPhone's GPS is still not, an update on your site, it may be defective.

Bluetooth: I do not have a Bluetooth headset, as I was tested by pairing Bluetooth with my Mac for internet tethering. It took me many tries to get my iPhone 4 successfully pair with my Mac, but I was finally able to him to do this procedure:

1st On the iPhone, select Internet Tethering by> Settings> General> Network> Internet Tethering On. You will be asked if you want to enable Bluetooth; do. (You can also Bluetooth by going to Settings> General> Bluetooth>, but there's not much you can with a Mac-iPhone Bluetooth pairing other than Internet Tethering, you might as well save yourself the extra step to . do)

2nd Open System Preferences on your Mac and open the System Preferences Bluetooth. Turn your Mac's Bluetooth on, and click the check box next to "recognizable" as your iPhone, you can find your Mac. Click + to be a new Bluetooth device and Bluetooth Wizard opens.

3rd Once Bluetooth Wizard opens, you should show your iPhone in the list of devices immediately. If it does not work this is your first indication there might be something wrong with your iPhone Bluetooth. If the iPhone does not appear, click it and wait, Bluetooth wizard to generate a password.

4th Here is the part where I got tripped is. Once Bluetooth wizard generates a password for your iPhone, not only do you have that pass code to accept on the iPhone, after accepting the pass code, click the pairing must immediately click on "Next" in the Bluetooth Setup Assistant on your Mac otherwise it will fail. There is nothing in the Bluetooth Setup Assistant, you do what is very irritating - I spent about 15 minutes cursing at my Mac, until I told the out.

5th Fortunately, once your iPhone successfully pairs with your Mac over Bluetooth, you should not always have to do it again. Click here for the use of the iPhone's Internet Tethering via Bluetooth, the Bluetooth icon on your Mac's menu bar, select your iPhone, then select "Connect to the network."

Wi-Fi: Fortunately, testing the iPhone's Wi-Fi a lot easier than Bluetooth. activated In fact, with the iPhone, the default options, you will be prompted to connect to a nearby wireless networks are. If the iPhone discovered a nearby network of its own, this is a good sign when a connection to a network is successful, after you say it, the wireless antenna is working properly.

Touch screen: There are two quick ways to ensure that there are no dead pixels on your iPhone the touch screen. First, open any program, the text (Notepad, Safari, etc.) and type accepted "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" on the iPhone keyboard with your iPhone typing in all three orientations: Portrait, Landscape with the Home button on the left side, and the landscape with the Home button on the right. This is a good test, to ensure the touch screen registers taps along most of its surface. To test swiping, open the photo app, select any photo, zoom it, and run your finger over the whole screen, the photo should be to seamlessly with the movement of the fingers.

LCD: Considering how close is the pixel-4's iPhone retinal display, it is questionable whether a visible or two dead pixels at all would. You can test for dead pixels anyway with the free flashlight app that allows you many different solid and patterned colors are displayed on the screen. What do the LED-backlit, it is obvious when it does not work at all, but you can further test by going into Settings> Brightness and drag the slider from one end of the scale to another.

Ambient Light Sensor: The easiest way to check this is by sitting in a darkened room and turn it up and down> in the settings of brightness. In a dark room and to the default brightness settings, the display should auto-brightness light off, then darken slightly with auto-brightness.

CPU / GPU: Playing any graphically intensive 3D game will be the iPhone 4 CPU and GPU a decent workout, especially if the app for the retina display optimized. The iPhone 4 processor and graphics hardware are surprisingly robust for a device of its size, so you should not see much graphical economic downturn in any game App Store fire. Garbled or distorted image points to a bug in the GPU, while mean excessive heating or general low performance could a faulty CPU. Playing a H.264 hi-res movie in the iPod app is a good check, too - videos should play smoothly without stuttering or obvious artifacts such as blocks, lines, pixellation or distortion.

Magnetometer: Open the Compass app and tap the button in the lower right corner. iPhone should be able to switch seamlessly between true north and magnetic north. If your iPhone is not able to do a signal even after numerous "figure 8" movement in order to obtain clear interference, the magnetometer can be faulty.

Tops: The iPhone is not by any standard 4-Apps that come the benefits of the roundabout. Fortunately, there is a free app called gyroscope in App Store iPhone 4 that the capacity, its orientation in 3D space demonstrates seen. Once you download and open, this would app, it immediately obvious if your iPhone's four gyroscope is incorrect because one or more of the values for pitch, roll, yaw or will not change when you move the device.

What to test during a call:

Microphone: Test the microphone in normal and hands-free mode. The person on the other phone should be able to hear you clearly, with minimal distortion, if at all. There are a few reports of failed four microphones in the iPhone have been listening to people do not talk of the caller, iPhone with a 4; whether this fault or a microphone for an overzealous Noise-canceling microphone, is unclear.

Speakers: Both the speaker and listener base of the speaker to be heard, and free of static or distortion. Listen for noise from the noise-canceling microphone or an unscreened / screened poorly headphone speakers - my first two iPhone units 4 a very annoying "beatbox" sound when making calls.

Proximity Sensor: The touch screen should be switched off if the iPhone held to your ear, then quickly back on when pulled. There have been reports of the iPhone with 4 sensors accidentally activated during the phone calls and what people hang up on unwanted calls with their cheeks (How's that for FaceTime), but this is probably a problem with the IOS software as a hardware problem. If the proximity sensor to work at all, this is a hardware failure.

All of the above-mentioned studies carried out, together takes about 15-20 minutes, not counting the time that you want to synchronize data on the iPhone for the first time putting the iPhone through its paces with the four tests described above glaring deficiencies iPhone 4 be found immediately. The final piece of the iPhone 4 hardware requires that the test takes much longer to test:

Battery: I have done no specific testing of the iPhone 4 battery, but the life I have has come from him over the last 24 hours consistent with Apple's estimates. There are any number of battery tests you can perform to test your battery's capacity, but one of the most popular is a video on repeat and let it play until the battery is empty. According to Apple tests you should get around 10 hours of video playback from a single battery charge, but there is some leeway in these results. I want a little less than 7 or so hours of video playback on a fully charged, brand new iPhone 4, which may fail in brightness, which has done nothing to play as a video during this time to say to a battery failure.

These tests are necessarily simplistic, and they can not catch all the hardware failures that might find an Apple Store Genius with special equipment. That's the beauty part, though: these tests are only about everyone can do, and if you make it all right after I your iPhone 4 you are relatively sure that your iPhone 4 no out-of-the-box dud. After passing through this list myself, I could not find anything with my second replacement iPhone 4, at least for now, it seems the third time is indeed the charm.