Today, I had to replace my iPhone 5S for the second time. The first time, back in December, I completely blame Apple for, but this time around, I’m pretty sure it was my fault, although I did manage to still get it replaced for free.
Go me.
How, you may wonder? I’m glad you asked.
Back in December, when I took the first of many work trips to our new customer in Harrisburg, PA, I was driving to their facility on a snowy morning when my iPhone went from having cell coverage and network to just Searching… This wasn’t the first time this had happened. The week before, I had been driving home from New Jersey and the same thing happened from Edison, NJ, until I reached Bethlehem, PA, only this time it never left Searching…
I ended up driving a half hour to Lancaster, PA, and getting my iPhone replaced, for free, because it was still under warranty and it was obviously a hardware problem. Huzzah for the new phone.
Unfortunately, a few short months later, I was on my way to Harrisburg, PA, once again when I managed to blow up the engine in my MINI. How does this relate to the saga of my iPhone? Simply, I had the car towed to the MINI dealer in Pittsburgh. When I got there, I climbed out of the tow truck and my iPhone slid off my lap, landing on the ground, and shattering the screen. Trust me when I saw it was not a good week.
When I made it home, I went to a local computer repair store and paid them $200 to replace the screen on my iPhone, because I don’t have AppleCare. I feel that’s a fairly reasonable price to replace something that would have cost me like $600, otherwise.
I thought everything was just peaches and cream, up until the proximity sensor on my phone stopped working. The proximity sensor is the thing that lets your phone know when it is close to your face so the touch screen is deactivated. In addition to that, it was starting to, “touch itself”. The screen would jump around, apps would open, letter I wasn’t touching would get typed continuously. It was very annoying. Since I’m in Jacksonville and staying at a hotel that is a 5 minute walk from the Apple Store, I decided to head over there tonight and see about trying to get it replaced, even though I was pretty damn sure that the entire cause of my problems was the third party screen and having it replaced by the guys at the repair shop.
I walk in, tell them my out of town sob story, and managed to get an appointment for one hour later. Walk back to the hotel, drink a Tom Collins, and head back over to the Apple Store for my appointment. I explain the the Genius Bar people what my problem is, one of the guys takes it into the back room to check it out, then comes out a few minutes later.
He immediately asks me, “When did you get a 3rd party screen replacement.”
I said, “I had it replaced at the Apple Store in Lancaster, PA, back in January.”
I know, that wasn’t true.
He says, “Well, I cracked it, so it’s on me. I can’t remove third party screens.”
I just smiled inwardly since that meant new phone, no cost to me.
It’s nice when things work out your way for a change.
Suboptimal Musings 