Phone near radio station screen

Never seen the problem but is it by chance a GSM based phone? Major carriers would be AT&T and T-Mobile.

GSM phones in 2G and EDGE mode put out some nasty interference that you can hear through speakers. But up bup bup bup bup.... or bzzz bzzz bzz bzzz (while on the phone).

 

If you haven't tried already, turn the car off and back on (as well as the radio off and on) to make sure it's not a transient issue. If it's not, call the dealer, and get it fixed under warranty. The fact that your phone was nearby is irrelevant. It's possible that the radios in the phone induced a malfunction in the radio, but only if the radio already had a marginal component in it. Under normal circumstances, the radio wouldn't care one bit. How many people have phone mounts near the head unit with no problems whatsoever? I know quite a few.

 

If it's not a Verizon iPhone 4, it IS GSM based.

If you want to be sure to hear the GSM noises, disable 3G (Settings > General > Network and set Enable 3G to Off). Try making calls, receiving calls, downloading data, streaming music or video, sending/receiving SMSes with 3G disabled near speakers.

Turn 3G back on afterward.

If you are in areas w/weak or no 3G coverage, the phone will/can go to EDGE or GPRS (3G near upper left will change to E or what looks like an o for GPRS).

Side note: When I was working for a department at my college, UCLA, we had walkie talkies that were powerful enough to work despite the hills and concrete walls of our dorm buildings. They were so powerful that if you pressed talk while near a CRT monitor, the image would jump. I was in a student's room working on a problem and every time I pressed talk, the CD player on the other side of the room would skip.

Those same walkie talkies, when brought too close to a digital answering machine would mess it up and cause it lose all its memory (I think if you pressed talk near it). That happened to one of my friends.

 

I have that radio (I have the base model) and I have a gsm phone and have held it near the screen and its not done any damage. Perhaps it's the iphone? Maybe it's a coincidence that yours got damaged?

You could play innocent and get it repaired under warranty. Would that be fraud or deception?

 

As the others said, it's highly unlikely that the phone caused any problems... and on the off chance it did, it's only because the radio was defective to begin with... it should be shielded enough to protect itself from any radiation produced by the phone.

I wouldn't have any moral issues with getting it replaced under warranty, however, I also probably wouldn't mention the phone... not because I'm afraid that they wouldn't cover it, but rather that it might cause more confusion. I would simply tell them that the radio turned off on it's on and when you turned it back on the screen looked like that.