CSiPhone: The Deadly Dust

A few months back, POPULAR MECHANICS Senior Technology Editor Glenn Derene began experiencing difficulties with his first-gen iPhone:

The problem began almost imperceptibly several months ago. I found myself pushing my first generation iPhone's "home" button two, sometimes three times before the device would respond. Shortly thereafter, the "sleep/wake" button became less responsive as well. As time went on, I was pushing the buttons four or five times before I'd get a response. They didn't respond to an ordinary push: I'd have to exert multiple foot-pounds of force and hold it to get any sort of reaction from the increasingly fickle iPhone.

Things got so bad that Derene finally resorted to taking his handset to an Apple Genius Bar -- only to discover that (a) his iPhone would have to be sent out to be fixed, and (b) since it was no longer under warranty, the repair bill would come to $200, and he'd be better off just getting a new iPhone 3G.  Derene bit the bullet and upgraded...but also vowed to get to the bottom of his old handset's demise.

The first step was a Gil Grissom-style "iTopsy:"

Which led, almost immediately, to the source of the iPhone's failure:

 

Lint. 

Derene concluded:

That's right, a year and a half's worth of pocket lint had wedged itself underneath the iPhone's "home" button and compacted to the point where the button couldn't fully depress. (By the way, Mr. Jobs, a simple and inexpensive rubber O-ring would have completely prevented the problem—just a suggestion.)
The irony was inescapable—only when I had completely destroyed the iPhone could I fix it.

[Via Popular Mechanics]