Now it's Just Getting Silly...
...but I consider it my duty to help stress test our data backup and restore applications (and annoy the heck out of our developer who works on them) :P
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...but I consider it my duty to help stress test our data backup and restore applications (and annoy the heck out of our developer who works on them) :P
In a heart-rending turn of events, my iPhone (yes, I eventually broke down and bought one) turned suicidal and blew its earpiece. The speaker phone and headset are still golden, but I can't take any calls from people otherwise :( So, I got to have my first dealings with Apple's customer service department.
The positive side is that the phone-based support I received was totally painless. Getting from their main switchboard to a live rep took less than a minute. The entire call was done in about five and a box was on its way via overnight FedEX to ship the phone to Apple in. Additionally, an email was immediately sent to me with the tracking number for the box, my support reference number, and some other info from the call.
When the empty box arrived, I was surprised to find a small instruction booklet for packing up the phone, along with a perfectly-fitted padded bag to protect the phone, and even a paper clip for removing my SIM card. I think "wow!" sums it up pretty well.
There have been a couple of negatives, though. Firstly, I'm thoroughly disappointed that Apple doesn't provide a free loaner phone during the 7-10-day warranty repair. They did offer such a service for a $30 fee, and I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who'd rather pay it than live a week without their cell phone. But, if Apple really wanted people to be in awe of their customer service, they'd offer a free temporary phone.
The other major downer was the reason I had to go through their phone-based support in the first place -- Apple's online iPhone support was a joke. It was all well and good up until the point where they gave a drop-down menu to select what the issue was with my iPhone. Available options included issues with the ear buds and other iPhone accessories, but no options for any issues with the phone itself and no "other" field. What the heck?!
Overall, I'm still pretty impressed if only because of Apple's quick turnaround. Luckily, I have an old T-Mobile phone that I've unlocked to work with AT&T, but I feel bad for people who have to drop $30 for a loaner or live without a phone for a week.
One of the cooler aspects of GSM cellular providers is that your provider and account are mapped onto a SIM card that can be transferred between phones. Once upon a time, I was unfortunate enough to have T-Mobile (the other major U.S. GSM provider after AT&T/Cingular). Their service was generally acceptable around Northern Virginia and pitiful just about everywhere else, blegh! But anyway, that means I have an old GSM phone I can use on AT&T while my iPhone is in for repair.
The tricky bit was unlocking my old Samsung e715 so it would work with providers other than T-Mobile. After a bit of Googling and a bit of trial and error, here are my notes:
Note that the duplicate steps are intentional. Other sites I found claimed that you could start from booting up on the new SIM card, but my phone wouldn't recognize any of the commands unless I ran them on the T-Mobile card first.
Between the awesome turnaround time and frequent status updates, consider me pretty damn pleased with Apple right now.
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