smart phone camera broken.

This is only on topic for android, but I included you two groups anyhow.

Monday I had to go through security to get into a museum, and I put my phone and my keys and an empty coca cola can on the rubber conveyer belt to be drawn into the X-ray machine. The keys and the coca-cola can weren't heavy enough to push aside the rubber straps hanging down (making sort of a wall) so I pushed the keys through and let the can fend for itself, figuring someone else's stuff would push it through.

I go through the electonic doorway and go to get my stuff. It's not there. Everyone else has used a purse or backpack. I note a 3/4" crack between the conveyor belt and the shelf it feeds into, look on the ground, and there is my stuff.

The guard doesn't speak my language but I point to the phone and say "My phone!" Phone is the same in a lot of languages. He moves his arms in a sweeping manner meaning go around to the other side. There is no fence on that side and between women trying to get their stuff, I kneel down and get my phone and my key. I ignore my coca cola can but I find two pieces of wrapped candy!!!

A little later in the museum, I go to take a picture. The screen is mostly black. I tap the icon for the other lens and it works, but if I zoom in too much with that one, it turns black too. This is the 4th time the phone was dropped, I coudlnt' be lucky forever.

And just the day before I read a long article about how smartphones focus. It turns out they do it the same way other cameras do, by moving a lens (even though the phone is so thin, the lens must be small and not move very far.) So that's what broke. It's not even worth posting to Android to find out if there is a way to fix a broken cog, because I know there isn't.

What will I do for the rest of the trip?

Tonight I decide I should check my selfie lens -- that works fine, but it's not practical for anything but selfie-type stuff.

And I should check my telephoto apps. Maybe I'll get lucky. Darn, none of the three work.

Finally I look at the phone, and the black metal plate you put between the rubber case and the phone, to stick to a magnet on the dash, has slid up in front of the lens. And that was the whole problem. Everything works again.

(I hadn't taken off the adhesive backing yet because I wanted to make sure it was in the right place.)

Reply to
micky
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I probably would have looked at the lens first to see if it looked cracked.

Reply to
Thomas

I figured one of the supports broke, or slipped past where it should be, and the lens was facing the wrong direction, towards the insided of the phone where it was dark.

I once took apart of fairly expensive ($100) camera and by golly, I pushed some part to the other side of another part, and everything worked after that. Maybe that had me biased in my diagnosis.

Reply to
micky

It couldn't happen to anyone but Micky, could it???

Reply to
Clare Snyder

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