Is the iPhone 3G more fragile than we think?

[LoverHater]

A week or so ago, I visited the Apple store. I was confused and slightly pissed off that my iPhone 3G had lost some of its functions. The problem had started a couple of months ago, as soon as the summer ended and the air began to grow colder. At first, when it was particularly cold, the volume button stopped working. It felt as if the buttons were stuck, and I assumed that it occurred because of the cold. It kept on happening, not getting worse, not getting better. I was not too worried because every time I got back into a warmer area, the volume button began to work again. Then one early December day (it was significantly colder), when I was itching to listen to music, I discovered that I could not hear anything when I pulled in my earphones. After a couple of tries, I realized that my earphones were not connecting to my iPhone, and instead the music continued to come out through the speakers. I was horrified. The next morning in school, I discovered that my silent button was not working either, and I could not carry my phone in my backpack. With a sinking feeling, I knew I had to take another trip to the wonderful Genius Bar. This is where my visit comes is. I explained my problem to one of the "geniuses," hoping for some solution to my problem (a new phone perhaps). You can imagine I was displeased when the genius took her way cool microscope-mini, looked inside the headphone hole, saw the dreadful red, and told me my iPhone had water damage. Not only that, but it was slowly deteriorating. Lovely, simply lovely. I very politely told her that my phone had never been submerged in water, so that there was no way that water damage could have messed my phone up. "No," she told me, "your warranty is void because your phone has water damage." As I left the Apple store ranting, I tried to think back to a time when my phone was touched by enough water to damage it this way. Could it have been those times when I had to call my parents in the rain? Could it had been when I kept it in the bathroom while I was taking a shower to make sure I heard someone calling? And then this thought struck me: If my phone is so damn delicate that it cannot handle some rain or little condensation, then is the iPhone any good at all? Sure it still is an über cool phone. I still love its functions. But I paid so much for it, and after ONE YEAR it already has major problems. I do not hear other people with different phones having this problem. I see people using their phone in the rain, and I do not see them worrying about water damage. If the iPhone is this delicate, then shouldn't they warn me? Shouldn't they suggest I hardly use my iPhone in the rain or something? I do not know if water damage is the real problem with my phone. Maybe it is a damage product and they are not taking responsibility for it. But even if water damage is the problem, that does not make this situation my fault. It is Apple's fault for not warning me before I purchased such an expensive phone. Because honestly, if I would have known that I could not use my phone during precipitation, I would have thought more about it before buying it.

Check out this link to see that I am not the only one:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=666802