The top of the digitizer may be failing, if it hasn't changed with the update. My wife's old GS2 had a similar issue along the bottom. Have him try to rotate the home screens by swiping across at the very top. Also, if he just taps and holds the time at the upper right corner of the screen, it should expand the notification bar by a couple of rows, but it isn't the same as the full pull-down. See if that works.