Three Out of Three

Yesterday, I asked sardonically, as Dick put it, teasingly even, of my plans to get my phone fixed, “How can anything go wrong?” Dick rightly pointed out that I was needlessly tempting fate. Somewhere in the midst of my attempts to restore my dementia-riddled phone’s firmware, I managed to corrupt the Apple Mobile Device Service on my desktop computer. Luckily, a quick Google search yielded a relatively simple solution, and at least my desktop computer was working properly again. Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, the restoration did nothing for the phone. So I left things as they were for the night, and took the subway down to keep my Genius Bar appointment this morning.

I was there a little early, and the Genius saw me at about 9:25 for my 9:30 appointment. I walked out of the store at 9:37 with a working phone. I showed him the phone’s addled behavior and explained what happened. He examined the phone’s various openings with what looked like an otoscope (where have I seen one of those recently?) and couldn’t see any water damage. Therefore, he said, the phone was defective through no fault of my own. Had it still been within the warranty period (which it would have been three weeks ago), he would have given a free replacement. As it was, I had to pay $200 for the replacement, which was a solution I was pretty happy with.

I didn’t know first generation iPhones were still available, but getting one meant I wouldn’t have to commit to a new two-year contract with AT&T. The iPhone 3G contract options are more expensive than the first generation options, I don’t really need the boost in network speed given the way I use the phone, and my existing contract will end next summer, just in time to get next year’s version of the iPhone without having to convert an existing contract, or maybe even see what sort of Android phones will be available. I was worried that I’d be faced with the choice of either paying a termination fee on my existing contract or paying $400 for an iPhone 3G (since I was still under an existing contract) and committing to a new two-year contract. Given what others have lost to tropical weather lately, I’m going to count myself lucky on this one.