iPhone Woes

Three weeks ago, after I finished my tour of the Escort – Beltronics plant in Mississauga Canada, I drove down to Niagara Falls and took the “Lady of the Mist” boat ride at the bottom of the falls.

Prior to getting on the boat, the staff provides a thin plastic “garbage bag” type of a rain coat for everyone to wear to keep from being soaked to the bone. My problem being over six foot six and 300 pounds, the bottom of the bag only covered me to the waist.

After being drenched waist down and while debarking from the boat, I unclipped my trusty Blackberry from my belt to make a call, only find it inoperable.

As being one that always tries to find an opportunity from misfortune, I thought that this would be a great time to upgrade my phone to one of those iPhones that were just being released that week.

After arriving home I shot over to my local AT&T store and had them first inspect my Blackberry. After opening the battery case they confirmed that it was toast and it could not be repaired.

I then asked them about the availability of the iPhone and I was told that I was in luck, that they just had several eight meg units shipped to the store and one could be mine for only $600.00 and change.

I signed up for their two year contract and took one home and spent the next several hours picking the songs from my MP3 collection that I was going to load into the phone.

The phone worked flawlessly the next few days as I serviced and packed up my Harley Davidson to make my annual pilgrimage to Sturgis South Dakota for bike week.

After my departure to Sturgis my first stop was Flagstaff Arizona to fuel up and to eat a hearty Mexican dinner. While eating and surfing the net on my iPhone a strange message appeared: “Repair Needed iPhone cannot make or receive calls. www.apple.com/support”

I pulled out my trusty old Tough Book laptop from my backpack and quickly brought up Apple’s support website, but could not find any troubleshooting for this message. I powered off the iPhone, packed up my belongings and headed back out to the open road.

Late the following morning I pulled into Denver and powered up the iPhone and to my pleasant surprise it was working. I made a few telephone calls to family and friends, freshened up and headed back onto the road.

Late that evening I rode into our camp in Custer South Dakota and called it a night.
The following morning I disconnected the iPhone from the 12 volt charger to call my wife to tell her that I made it safe and found the phone displaying the message of death again, that my iPhone needed repair.

Using a wired phone line at the camp, I called iPhone service and this is where the real fun started…..

I explained to the first service technician that I was on vacation in South Dakota and the message that was appearing on the phone. She paused a few seconds and then related “We can only offer support to our customers in North America, so I am unable to assist you any further”.

Flabbergasted, I gave the technician a bit of a geography lesson, explaining that South Dakota was indeed a state in the US and that it was just above Nebraska, east of Wyoming.   She replied that she was sorry, but South Dakota was not on her list of states in the USA and she could not help me. She then asked if I wanted she could transfer me to someone else, I said “yes please”!

The next operator was confused as to why I was transferred to him, relating that he offered support on laptops and had no clue on the iPhone. However he chuckled when I explained that the last operator said South Dakota was not in the USA and replied that he would make it a point to find someone at their headquarters that could help me.

Finally I was transferred to an iPhone service specialist and I explained my dilemma. She explained that she had never heard of such a message and that this message was not in her service database, but that she would walk me through a few troubleshooting methods.

She asked me to hold down the power button and the menu button at the same time to hard boot the phone and to wait till it powered up. After the iPhone powered back up and while it was searching for service, the “Repair Needed” message appeared again.

The service specialist explained that it appeared that my phone would need to be replaced, however since I was on the road on vacation without any real shipping address that I would have to wait till I returned home. There I could bring the phone back to where I purchased it so it could be replaced or repaired.

I packed up my iPhone for the next couple weeks and begged, borrowed others to use their phones to call my loved ones while on my vacation.

The following morning after arriving home, I headed off to the AT&T store where I purchased my phone to obtain service. I was told at the store that they could do nothing for me at the store that I had to call Apple to obtain support.

At the store I called Apple and explained my three week dilemma having no telephone service. The service specialist said that he had a solution, that I could drive to their Apple Store in Phoenix and that they could either repair or replace the phone while my phone was being serviced.

After driving over 3200 miles the past few weeks, I didn’t think much of another 100 mile trip to the Apple store to get this resolved.

A couple hours later I was greeted at the Apple store and I explained my problem. I almost fell to the floor when I was told that they could make an appointment for me later that week so I could meet with a service person!

Holding my temper I tried to explain my situation again and adding that I lived almost one hundred miles away and that I couldn’t possibly come down later that week. The Apple store person explained that I could wait as an “on call” incase someone didn’t show up for their appointment, but that there were already several people ahead of me and couldn’t guarantee that someone would assist me today.

Feeling totally defeated I headed home and I called Apple Support back. Finally after speaking with a few more specialists, I found one that took apathy in my situation and explained that he would waive the $29.95 service fee and send me out a replacement iPhone overnight with instructions on how to return my inoperable unit.

A few hours ago my replacement iPhone was delivered by FedEx and I connected it to my computer to restore my files and settings. While waiting, I packed up my inoperable phone and dropped it off at the FedEx store around the corner.

Upon returning to my computer and iPhone I found that all my settings were restored and unplugged the phone and powered up.

After the iPhone found service, indicating four bars, I began dialing my first number and paused when the message appeared that seemed all so familiar “Repair Needed”!