Yesterday during my morning commute, my iPhone froze. While that simple fact wasn’t really alarming (electronics do wierd things all the time, right?), what positively
terrified me was that none of the troubleshooting tricks in my arsenal were working.
To recap:
1. I tried to force-quit the app. It didn’t work.
2. I tried to power down the phone. It didn’t work.
3. I tried to perform a reset. It sort of worked, I got the white apple logo. Then the phone started looping endlessly through the startup sequence.
4. I arrived at the office, figuring I could restore from my desktop machine. This didn’t work either, since iTunes couldn’t even see my phone.
5. I looked up a troubleshooting guide on the internet, and followed the instructions to get into recovery mode. This also didn’t work (although as I found out later, these instructions were wrong).
Finally, at a complete loss as to what I should do, I got online, and made an appointment at my local Genius Bar.
I arrived at the Apple Store a few minutes before my appointment, and waited on a bench for the next available Genius. I didn’t have to wait long. I explained to him what had happened, and he informed me that, before proceeding any further, he needed to check the unit to see whether it had been exposed to any liquid.
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I have something to confess: four months ago, I dropped my iPhone in a toilet. (It was an accident, and I’m sorry, I swear!) At the time, I thought it was dead forever, but I wrapped it in a towel, put it on my baseboard heater, and spent a harrowing couple of days trying to decide whether or not I should shell out the 6 or 7 hundred dollars to replace it. Miraculously, when I tried to turn on the phone, it worked. I haven’t had a single problem since.
I’ve heard from various sources that it can take some time for the effects of water damage to become apparent, but four months? It seemed to me that the problem could be related to some apps I had downloaded immediately before falling asleep the previous night. Worth investigating at least.
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I mentioned this to my Genius, but, having confirmed that the unit had gotten wet at some point, he told me there was absolutely nothing he could do, that my phone would
never work again, and that I would have to replace it, at full cost, through Rogers. The whole process took less than ten minutes. He didn’t event try to turn it on.
Let me be clear: I knew my warranty was void. I knew there was a water sensor, and I knew that it would be checked. I didn’t think I was going to “get away” with anything, and I didn’t expect a magical free iPhone.
What I did expect was some decent customer service, and at least a cursory run-through of some basic troubleshooting techniques, just in case I had missed something. This is, after all, a device that retails for hundreds of dollars. Instead, I got a nonchalant “sorry, go buy a new one”.
Not to be deterred, I returned to the office. After a bit of Googling, I found some slightly different instructions for forcing recovery mode, and decided to try them, just in case I had been doing it incorrectly before. This time, I was able to get iTunes to recognize my phone, and restore it to factory settings. I used a backup from my desktop to restore most of my data, and my phone is working fine now. This took all of 30 minutes, and probably would have taken a “Genius” even less, since - in theory, at least - he already knew how.
What bothers me the most is that, while I have a general knowledge of how to troubleshoot my own devices, many iPhone users don’t, and would have gone out and bought an unnecessary replacement phone on the store employee’s say-so. I’ve been a loyal mac user for almost ten years (and all of my adult life), and while I have always received above-average service from Apple in the past, this was a completely unacceptable experience.
My advice? If you have even some basic computer skills, cover all the bases yourself before turning to a so-called Genius. It’s clear that you cannot count on the Apple Store or its employees to help you in your time of need. I’ve posted some resources below.
Have a jammed-up iPhone of your own? Here’s a link to Apple’s DIY troubleshooting guide:
http://www.apple.com/ca/support/iphone/troubleshooting/phone/
...and if all else fails, here’s how to get your iPhone into recovery mode (you’d better have a backup of your data, because this will erase everything):
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19512_7-10115074-233.html
