What you need to know about iPhone Touch Disease - Part 1

What is the iPhone Touch Disease?

Unlike the name suggests, it's not a disease caused by iPhone usage or a kind of virus spread from one device to another. It's a name gives by iFixIt electronic repair blog techies to a peculiar problem reported in some iPhone models after tones of iPhone 6 pluses were affected by the problem.
iPhone owners experience this problem as their devices suddenly stop working properly, the touch ID refuses to work at all, and hazy gray horizontal lines that appear on the top of the screen. The result is an unresponsive device and issues such as being unable to zoom or pinch.
The problem appears to be caused by a manufacturing flaw in the iPhone 7 plus that leads to the faulty function of touch controllers on the logic board. The controllers are responsible for both the touch screen and touch ID fingerprint sensors. So, it makes sense when its connection with the mainboard is broken that causes a problem with display and fingerprint sensors.

Is It Really a Disease?

No, of course not. Unlike COVID-19 that took many casualties all around, The iPhone Touch Disease is an illness that can spread from one infected body to another. That's not the way iPhones works. Reportedly, Touch Disease is created by a design flaw in some iPhone models or when you drop your iPhone (as Apple claims), not because your phone sneezed on another phone. In fact, iPhones don't get viruses and don't sneeze at all. iPhone Touch Disease is just a fancy name someone gave the technical problem that many iPhone 6 Plus smartphones confront.

Which iPhones are affected?

By far, iPhone 6 plus is reported to be the most commonly affected device by the iPhone Touch Disease problem. iPhone 6 Plus was introduced in 2014 and since then, many of its owners have been complaining about gray lines on the screen or a malfunctioning screen or Touch ID all of sudden. According to experts, 90% of phones suffering the problem are iPhone 6 plus, but the issue has been observed in iPhone 6, iPhone 6S, and iPhone 6S Plus as well.

How likely is that my iPhone is Suffering from Touch Disease?

Reviewing the comment written in social media and online forums indicates that this isn't a small and localized problem. There is currently a thread in the Apple community that is currently over 50 pages and growing. The problem is so widespread that it finally compelled Apple to acknowledge the problem and offer a fix for Touch Disease in iPhone 6 or as they name it, Multi-Touch issue. Therefore, if you have iPhone 6 plus or iPhone 6 families there is a good chance that your iPhone is infected by the disease.

How do I know if my phone has Touch Disease? What are the symptoms?

If you have iPhone 6 plus, the following two symptoms can help you determine whether your iPhone has the Touch Disease or not. The issues are easy to spot and are the same for all iPhone users experiencing this problem.
1. If your iPhone's multi-touch is not working properly, your device is probably infected by iPhone Touch Disease. You might be noticed that your iPhone's touch screen does not understand gestures such as pinching or zooming without difficulty. This might be a sign of failure in the touch controller on your device.
2. The other symptom is the glitchy grey horizontal line across the top of your iPhone's screen that showed up out of the blue or after you dropped your phone.
Some people also complain that the Touch ID of their device failed to recognize fingerprints short after the problem started. Once you identified the problem, try not to put pressure on the screen (as some people suggest online) or fix the problem yourself, such treatments could make the problem even worse.