The Eternal Silliness that is the Apple iPhone

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OK the iPhone 3G is cool, when it works. It does everything Apple, the very merry Apple way. Unfortunately, when it is broke, it is miserable in the most miserable Apple way. I recommend that you do not buy an Apple iPhone if there is no “Real” Apple store within 75miles of your main residence. When I called in to Apple support about my iPhone “No WiFi” error, I found out the hard way that even if the you are in the parking lot of the AT&T store and walk back in and say “my iPhone does not work”, all you will get is a blank stare and then a very rehearsed “you will have to call Apple we don’t support the iPhone warranty”.

So I call Apple and it is like talking to people from Leave it to Beaver meets George Orwell’s 1984… Sure they calmed me down, and made it feel OK that they just *&%(*# me over. You see even though the AT&T store I purchased my iPhone from is only two miles away, if I want the iPhone replaced right away, I have to make an appointment at a “black balloon” Apple store not a “blue balloon” store. You see on the Apple website when you go to find an Apple Store the blue balloons indicate an Apple “authorized dealer”, but the place lacks the Orwellites that only a true “black balloon” store has on staff to help you fix anything iPhone. Blue balloon would be “in town” or 40 minutes away for me, but instead I have to drive a 110miles to get to the closest “black balloon” one. Grr… The support guy says “Hey that is in Chicago, you are in Illinois, so that should do it for you”. Nice and close…

Like everyone in Illinois lives in Chicago. Well, ok, a large portion of the population does live in Chicago, but we don’t.

This call is taking place on Wednesday morning, and the guy thinks I can just take off and drive to Chi-town on a whim. I say “I can not make it until Saturday.” He says “no problem, we will just follow the prompts on the website together… Hmm… Looks like you can not make an appointment that far out. You will have to wait until Thursday. Or you can send us your iPhone.” Gee that is convenient, I just spent two weeks waiting for the phone and now a I have to wait a couple days for a package to be delivered to my house, which of course, will be diverted to Fedex or UPS or the post office for an extra day, because well… I work, and will not be home for the delivery. So maybe three days to get a box to send the phone, then they will send it back five days later which will be six or seven if a weekend gets in the way.

OK it is my fault, but I let the guy go, because I could not decide whether to drive 110miles or ship the phone out. This is one of those things I need to talk with the wife about, mainly because the last time I exchanged an Apple product without confirming with the Mrs. I walked away 500 bucks poorer. I hangup. The wife says mail the phone in… But I can not get past the darn Apple Support robot operator. “You can say what you need help with like, iTunes or iMovie; go ahead give it a try” I say “iphone” and then I am pretty sure the robot hung up on me. Five tries later and I am sure the damn robot has me on a list. I am sorry Steve said you can not have access.

I give up. It is late and it looks like we will make our very merry Apple way to Indianapolis on Saturday, and go to the Zoo after visiting Apple land.

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About Boomer

Applications engineer with a specialization in microscopes and computer integration of microscopes. Presently living in Orlando Florida. My focus is in fluorescence, bright field, dark field, polarized light, confocal and spectroscopy applications. I am also fluent in electron microscopy (SEM and TEM).

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