Comments on: An iPhone Drama with a Happy Ending

By: guy smyley

guy smyley — Thu, 29 May 2008 14:51:10 +0000

i waited in line to get an iphone last year. at the time, i thought that the protective cases made the phone look less sleek. i ended up dropping my iphone on some concrete steps, breaking the glass. i took my iphone to the apple store; they gave me a new one for $30.

By: laslo

laslo — Wed, 28 May 2008 22:38:13 +0000

good point

By: Ramón

Ramón — Wed, 28 May 2008 18:11:02 +0000

laslo: So why did they give me a new iPhone and unravel the ATT mess?
I could fill a column with all of the good experiences that I’ve had at Apple.
It took them a while to reach that point; they used to be snotty, but they saw that it was damaging, and they got on it right away - at least in my opinion.
If other companies put their gloves down, they may garner the same loyalty that Apple enjoys.

By: laslo

laslo — Wed, 28 May 2008 10:53:47 +0000

hm, the apple guys know that you are the writer of the appleblog, so they gave you the iphone for free so you can write a article about your experience they spied on you

By: Alex Moyler

Alex Moyler — Sat, 24 May 2008 22:42:01 +0000

Same situation happened with my iPod touch, had a dead pixel, they whisked it away, grabbed a new one out and replaced it there and then. Took off the Gelaskin cover I had on it and gave it to me as I had the bit of paper I’d peeled it off when it was shipped to me, but one brand new iPod touch with no faults. Win.

By: mike

mike — Sat, 24 May 2008 13:02:24 +0000

I was sitting in my chair at my computer, in my home in Mexico playing with my “Jail Broken/Unlocked” 4GB iPhone. I dropped it on our tile floor and the home button quit working. I called Apple, explained what had happened, (did not tell her I had dropped it, or that it was jail Broken) explained I lived to far from an Apple store, they sent a pre paid return box to my friend in Daytona FL , I sent the phone back with a friend, he sent the box back on a Wednesday, and Saturday a brand new 8GB iPhone arrived!

By: John

John — Sat, 24 May 2008 06:18:12 +0000

I had a friend with a similar experience. He had issues with a MacBook. On a business trip up the East Coast he stopped in at several Apple stores. Each time he stopped they had the record of the previous visits so that one genius could pick up where the other left off till they fixed the problem. Very cool.

By: Brandon Eley

Brandon Eley — Sat, 24 May 2008 03:09:10 +0000

My wife’s iPhone had a problem a few months ago. We were literally leaving the next morning for a conference in Vegas and half of the screen on her iPhone just died. The touchscreen (on only half the screen) was completely unresponsive. I tried resetting, complete factory restore, nothing worked.

I called the Apple Store that night and talked to someone about it and they said it would probably have to be replaced. Since the nearest Apple Store is about an hour & a half away I figured we’d have to wait until we got back from the trip.

When we landed in Vegas my wife was remarking that she couldn’t check our work email, she couldn’t check voicemails, etc. Considering we’d be gone for days, this was going to be a problem. Luckily for us there was an Apple Store just down the street from our hotel on the Strip in Vegas, and they were extremely helpful. They got her phone swapped out and working, and we added her email account so she could check email while away.

The “Geniuses” at the Apple Store were extremely nice and helpful. When they saw what the iPhone was doing, they immediately pulled out a replacement, no questions asked. Within 5-10 minutes we were out of there. That is REAL customer service! And it makes perfect sense for Apple too… why pay for shipping both ways on defective iPhone replacements? Giving an instant replacement at the Genius bar makes the customer ecstatic and saves Apple money in the long run.

By: Ramón

Ramón — Sat, 24 May 2008 00:42:41 +0000

Welcome to Planet Apple, Matt.
A few months ago, during the height of the rainy season, my iPhone started acting up; it was charging me insane fees - subtracting them from the credit I keep with ATT. I went to ATT, and true to form, they were thoroughly UN-helpful, and they claimed that the problem was the iPhone (of course). I walked down the block to the Apple store in San Francisco - it was already early evening. When I tried to sign in for an appointment, they told me that they were so busy that they could squeeze me in a week from 2019. I just stood there, dejected. One of the Apple people came up to me and asked what was wrong. 20 minutes later I was sitting with a Genius. He examined the phone and said that he had never seen a similar problem. He asked me if I would be willing to let him have the phone for about an hour, and that he would leave the retail floor floor with it. I said, sure!
An hour later he returned with with the phone and a sheet of paper; it turns out that he had been on the telephone all of that time with ATT’s “customer service” (Shudder)!
He had written notes on everything that had happened, and it turns out that ATT admitted that they were having “issues”. He said that I would still need to contact ATT, but he had all the information that I would need to get them to credit my account for almost $100.00 that their wacked system had taken.
THAT’S service!
I almost forgot to mention: Two weeks before that, the phone stopped working, due to, I think too much water getting thru my “waterproof” jacket (I work outdoors). I took it to Apple, and without blinking, they took a new out of a sealed box, switched chips, and I was good to go!