iPhone stories

So there's this thing I bought the other week called 'iPhone'. I was anticipating its release for quite some time and made sure to have one in my hands the very first day it was available to the public.

Unlike some others, I didn't have to wait in any lines.

The transaction went like this:
AT&T Sales Fella: Hello, how may we help you today?
Me: I would like an iPhone.
AT&T: Would you like to look at one fir...
Me: No, I know I want one. Can you please just get one outta the stockroom or wherever the hell you keep the blasted things so I can buy it and be on my merry iphone-y way? Thank you. Sheesh!
AT&T: Right away sir!
(Or something like that)

I got it home and hooked up my iTunes account, selected a plan (I already had AT&T service) and moments later I was taking pictures (doin' the finger-thumb-pinch-zoom thing) and taking notes and calling people and on the internet and opening PDF email attachments and planning routes from here to there and whatnot. I was even more amazed with it than I was prepared for. It blew my f'ing mind.

Unlike some of the more vocal minority, I did not have to wait decades for activation.

So that was about a month ago. I still love the thing. It's pretty and functional and all things you'd expect from Apple. Sure, I doesn't do some things that other phones can do, but I never used those features anyway. So I don't miss them. My general consensus is that for every one wrong there are a hundred things right with the iPhone.

A few days ago I noticed the Balda touchscreen on my iPhone stopped responding. It was a small section only a few millimeters long, but running the entire width of the phone about one fingertip's length from the top of the phone...if that doesn't make any sense...just look at the pic.


It's a dead-zone that prevents me from accessing-among other things-the 1st on my list of email accounts (GMAIL...damnit!), the 'To:' line of the SMS application, The top item on any list (contacts, favorites, songs, my most recent Visual Voicemail, my most recent Note), turn bluetooth on, etc. It's downright annoying.


So I begin to get a little concerned. Especially since AT&T just sent me a letter stating that the phone insurance I had with them is not valid with the iPhone and is being canceled. I check the warranty on apple.com and see that I'm covered...mostly. First I tried to return the phone to the AT&T store I got it from knowing full-well that they are 'hands-off' of this thing. Sure enough the sales rep flipped out and explained to me all the training they had to go through to ensure that no one tries to return an iPhone or worse yet *GASP* exchange one. He was avoiding the phone like the plague. He wouldn't even look at the problem. Even my girlfriend chimed in with a piece of her mind, but they wouldn't budge...not even to her superior intellect and reasoning skills.

There is no other choice but to abide by Apple's designated iPhone repair procedure and send the blasted thing back in to get fixed. Since this is my only phone (other than my office desk phone at work) I am forced to choose the option to pay ~$30 for a rental unit to use while the Apple's defective product is being repaired. This is slightly disheartening, due to the fact that if I was not sold a defective product in the first place I would have no reason to need repair and hence no reason to part with my $30 for a rental fee.

I figured what better time to take care of the inevitable support call than while at the grocery store. I absolutely hate grocery stores and figured; if I'm going to be irritated, I might as well be irritated. So I explained the issue and made sure to voice my concerns with the rental fee to the nice girl at the Apple service call center (an American...*sigh of relief*). She seemed to be in a sort of 'training' position and basing all responses on a prescribed flow chart of questions and answers, but understood my argument. She was passing all my info along to what I can only assume was a floor manager or lead. I could hear him in the background from time to time suggesting questions for the nice support tech to relay to me. By the time I got to the pasta and sauce aisle I had my answer: the fee is waived, the temp phone will arrive shortly with a return package and all the necessary instructions. Thank you, Apple.

Currently I have 2 iPhones in front of me. One is my original (defective) and the other is the rental Apple service phone for use while mine is being repaired. I have prepped the shipping package for return to the service location, swapped the SIM card out using the specially designed iPhone-fix-it-all tool...er...I mean PAPER CLIP. That made me laugh. Luckily I already had one of my own /sarcasm. Just in case, one was supplied with the service phone.


Everything's all backed up and I'm all ready to send my busted phone back.

Next step: sync the service phone with iTunes. Seems simple enough, right? Wrong. The instruction booklet states the following:
"To begin using the temporary iPhone, simply sync it with iTunes"
So I connect the temp phone and iTunes automatically goes to the iPhone activation screen. For about the past 4 hours I have been confronted with error message stating that the phone could not be activated at this time. To this effect I performed the following troubleshooting steps:

1. Re-opened the packing and returned the SIM to my (defective) iPhone. Restored all settings and started over from scratch.
2. Restarted the computer. Re-sync'd with the (defective) iPhone.
3. Re-swapped the SIM back to the temp iPhone & attempted to re-sync.
4. Tried steps 1-3 a few more times mildly varying procedure.
5. Ended all unnecessary processes running in the background (WinXP SP2). This included all processes concerning 'Apple Mobile'-anything and 'distnoted.exe'-(some jibber-jabber process that has something to do with iPhone sync).
6. Connected the temp iPhone and left it plugged in (with no Apple Mobile services/processes running, it should not automatically sync with iTunes).
7. Opened iTunes.
8. Went to the Services Snap-in (Control Panel ►Administrative Tools ►Services) and restarted the "Apple Mobile Device" service.

After restarting the service, the temp iPhone was activated, all data was restored from backup and synced. It only took a few moments and my faith in Apple was restored.

I'm not 100% certain that any of the steps had anything to do with the eventual resolution. For all I know Apple's or AT&T's iPhone activation server was just off line for the time-being. I'm just glad to finally have a working temp iPhone and am comforted knowing that my own (defective) iPhone will be back soon and working as good as new...*crosses fingers*

---

31-Jul-07 *UPDATE*
The product that I tried to have replaced by AT&T in the Goddamn first place, but was forced to send in to APPLE for repair, has been REPLACED.

Apple, you so silly, me want smack you now.

*UPDATE*
Oh yeah. I forgot to mention. The "service" phone Apple supplied me with was an 8GB (jigger) model. Mine is a 4 jigger. Why they didn't provide a 4 jigger service phone, I'll never know. If they had, Apple, FedEx, the local MailExpress store and I all would be saved at least 2 trasactions in time and money. It seems like a waste to me when Apple could've just said: 'keep your service phone as the replacement. have a nice day' I would've been fine with that.

Well I really have no room to complain. It's probably the single easiest electronics repair/replacement I've ever been involved in. Apple, I'm sorry for being angry with you. Your support and service, overall, was supurb. Dell could (re)-learn a thing or 2.