@sadfist, yes i did the half press on the shutter to manually focus. i was trying to figure out how close can the camera be to the subject in macro mode but i cannot find this info anywhere. low enough light might be the culprit too but the flash only went off on the logitech pic

@chris, yep, i did get that green indicator. ill prolly test the camera more and find out

another thing, my camera has a freaking white spec/dust or whatever that's inside the camera lens, seen here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/18831981@N06/?saved=1

it doesn't affect the pictures that i've taken yet. i just hope that when the phone gets nudged, that thing won't go in the middle. or should i just return it?