iPad + dead screen = expensive paperweight + development disaster

I woke to find my iPad screen dead this morning.

Well, not quite dead – there seemed to be a little bit of backlight there, but nothing else. After some extensive googling, I tried restoring the software (both from backup and a full restore) with no luck – the iPad seemed to be “on”, (and iTunes seemed to think it was fine), but the screen was completely blank.

In a last ditch attempt I turned on the accessibility voiceover (a few people have reported an unintentional blank screen when accidentally turning on  the “screen curtain” function) – and using the 4 finger triple-tap gesture I was able to get a happy female voice to tell me (with a little too much certainty for my liking) “Screen curtain on! Screen curtain off!”

But the screen stayed black…

So the iPad is now off at the Apple store for service, which has set back the development of my app for this week a bit. I’ll continue working on it using the simulator (and will upload a demo this afternoon), but it won’t be as polished as I would have liked.

UPDATE: The Apple store gave me a brand new iPad, so I’m guessing that the dead screen is actually due to a hardware fault – if this happens to you don’t hesitate to take your iPad to the Apple store.