Stop iphone from dimming

Question

I'm looking for a way to stop the iPhone from dimming after a short period (specifically, when navigating via Google Maps).
I've tried turning Auto-lock to "Never" but that doesn't seem to do quite what I want, or at least not all that I want: it prevents the screen from going totally black and the iPhone from locking, but the screen still goes unusably dim after a short while.
Yes, tapping the screen brightens it back up, but the tap also stops navigation scrolling (I have to hit the "Resume" button); two taps like that are an unnecessary distraction while using it for car navigation. The only slight workaround is to touch the ETA bar, which instead causes the bar to switch between time left/time of arrival/distance remaining, but again, unneeded distraction.

Answer 1

apple-av8or wrote:
Whenever I'd go to an Apple Store they would ask if I'd tried restarting my phone?  (Soft reset). The follow up question is usually "how about a hard reset?"
So maybe those aren't the official terms but they're being used even by the apple "geniuses" themselves, at least at the stores I've visited. Hard reset definitely deletes some settings...
http://www.ubergizmo.com/how-to/how-to-reset-the-iphone/
I've never heard anyone official call anything a hard reset. What that (very old article) is referring to is erasing the phone. Definitely NOT the same thing as a reset. In the "interesting" thread to which the article refers makes Allan Sampson makes the same point I do.
Here is the official Apple article on reseting:
Restart or reset your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support
However, my larger point is, if a reset (as defined by Apple in the above article) doesn't help, the next steps would be restoring from back up and, if that didn't help, restoring as new. I'm more inclined to think what you have is a hardware problem, though.