Apple on Friday offered to fix some older iPhone 5 smartphones with flawed on-off buttons.<\/p>\n
The California-based company said a “small percentage” of iPhone 5 models manufactured through March of 2013 may have on-off buttons that stop working or work intermittently, in a posting on its support website.<\/p>\n
“Apple will replace the sleep\/wake button mechanism, free of charge, on iPhone 5 models that exhibit this issue and have a qualifying serial number,” it said at the website.<\/p>\n
The support web page contained instructions for iPhone 5 owners, along with a way to check serial numbers to determine if smartphones qualify for free repair.<\/p>\n
The process began Friday in the US and Canada and will begin in other countries on May 2, according to Apple.<\/p>\n
Apple prides itself on the quality of its devices, and offers of free fixes are rare for the company.<\/p>\n
In mid-2010, Apple put off dealing with concerns about iPhone 4 reception problems and the ensuing controversy came to be dubbed “Antennagate.”<\/p>\n
Apple was forced to address the issue after Consumer Reports, the influential product review magazine, said it could not recommend the iPhone 4 because of signal loss problems it blamed on a design flaw.<\/p>\n
Apple downplayed the issue as being the overblown result of the way people held their smartphones and offered free cases as a fix.<\/p>\n
Sony Xperia Z2 pre-order price, pre-registrations open in SA<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n