The iPhone

Oh, how lovely. This POS again cannot perform the most basic function; work as a cell phone! So, since my experience with the iPhone and Apple has been the absolute worst I have ever had with any cell phone or phone manufacturer, I decided I'd return the iTurd today before my stated deadline to do such, the 28th of this month. Now guess what; they now are giving me shit and refusing to allow me to return this expensive paper weight!

I'm now waiting for an Apple "regional supervisor" to call me to discuss the matter. Even though I've taken the POS in to the local store and they said "yup, it don't work", the dumbasses have only tried to call me on the damn phone that won't work!! I told them to call on another number so I could talk to them, but apparently such instructions are too complicated for the Apple tech support people.

More on the iTurd saga later...

Welcome to the iCult. You will not be permitted to leave so easily.

Might I suggest some black shoes, black pants, and a black turtle neck? You will need to always have some piece of iquipment attached to your person at all times.

Good luck Dargo! I'm pretty sure you'll have fun dealing with them.

PBinWA said:

Might I suggest some black shoes, black pants, and a black turtle neck? You will need to always have some piece of iquipment attached to your person at all times.

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Do you need to have an iFannypack to go with that outfit (to store your iStuff)?

Sorry to hear about your iTurd Brent. Although the phone doesn't work, are you getting e-mails? I sent you one this morning.

bczoom said:

Do you need to have an iFannypack to go with that outfit (to store your iStuff)?

Sorry to hear about your iTurd Brent. Although the phone doesn't work, are you getting e-mails? I sent you one this morning.

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Yeah, the email looks like it did come through. The iGadgets seem to work but the phone part doesn't. It seems that I was told wrong about being able to return my iTurd because of my "special" status and arrangement with getting the iTurd. It looks like they are going to refuse to take it back.

Get this; they told me to ship the iTurd to them and they'd fix it and mail it back. Uh, what about a phone during the week or two while it's gone for repairs?! They offered to "lease" me one! F that noise!! What the hell!? Apple apparently thinks that people only use their cell phone for occasional recreational purposes. I asked them if anyone has gone along with that dip shit policy without throwing a huge fit. Now I am going to get a "free loaner" tomorrow because of all the trouble I've had.

They also said that they would send me the Shure Music Phone Adapter when I told them that I have not really used the iPod part of the phone at all because I don't care for the crappy earphones that come with the iPhone. That way I can not only use any of my headphones with the iPhone, but can use all of them with the phone portion of the iPhone as well; assuming the phone part of the iPhone works. They also are sending me a set of V-MODA Vibe Duo Earphones/Headset (Black), from their Apple iPhone store.

So, I don't know what to think. On one hand, their iPhone is, in my opinion, an iTurd. That thought is based on the severe hardware issues I've experienced. Also, the stupid human tricks Apple puts the customer through from everything from the totally pathetic "authorization" process to having all issues handled by phone with Apple support (as opposed to dealing with the store that sold you the phone) is honestly unacceptable. Also unacceptable is the totally stupid process of expecting all iPhone customers to either do without a phone or pay for a rental phone when the iTurd is being repaired. Then, at times it seems as if Apple wants to try to make the customer happy and offers little "gifts" to them when they are screwed by their pathetic system Apple forces customers through. The bottom line is that once they have your money, you are NOT going to get it back.

Based on this experience, I definitely cannot recommend an iPhone at all. Also, because of the way Apple sets up rigid, and quite stupid, rules for support, I changed my mind on buying Apple products. I just purchased a new notebook last night for my son to use in college. I previously (to the iPhone experience) had every intention of buying my first Mac computer. Because of my Apple service experience, I did NOT buy a Mac. Dell service was bad, but it does not hold a candle to the Apple rules. HP customer support has been fantastic. I now totally discount the "ratings" that show Apple/Mac support as being better than other manufacturers. I know for a fact how Apple treats their customers now. They cannot hold a candle to HP support. Apple/Mac somehow has legions of iPeople who feel obligated to report nothing but positive things about Apple regardless of the actual experience. Obviously, I don't fit that mold. If something is good, I'll be sure to mention that. If something is pathetically bad, I will not hesitate to relate that as well.

Maybe Apple will begin to change the way they treat their customers. Being polite, but screwing my eyeballs out just doesn't get it with me. I have a feeling their so called ratings will begin to plunge before long if they keep up their current way of dealing with their customers. But, there again, I see thousands of people totally willing to look the other way right now simply because the product is from Apple. I guess time will tell. I'll try to keep an open mind, but right now my rather strong opinion is that Apple's customer support rules totally suck.

Brent, honestly one of the problems that I believed early on was that the iPhone is not a business tool. Its always struck me as geek toy, kid's phone. Slick but not ideal for function. Your experiences with Apple are dramatically different than mine, but then I've had computers and not iPhones. Still, I'm glad you got the iPhone and not me!!!

BTW have you found a way to filter junk email from your phone? I use a Treo and cannot filter the crap email I get. My computer filters 90% of the junk mail I get, but the phone filters none of it. Any clue how to filter email on a smartphone?

Dargo said:

It seems that I was told wrong about being able to return my iTurd because of my "special" status and arrangement with getting the iTurd. It looks like they are going to refuse to take it back.

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Can you elaborate? If I were Apple, based on your experience, I'd be taking care of your situation by allowing the return. I've been telling anyone I know that's even mentioned the iPhone about your experience and nobody will touch them. If they could resolve issues, like you I'd consider changing my opinion but for now, no way.

B_Skurka said:

Still, I'm glad you got the iPhone and not me!!!

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Now that's just mean.

bczoom said:

I've been telling anyone I know that's even mentioned the iPhone about your experience and nobody will touch them.

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Ditto.

I had to send my Powerbook in to the Apple Store for repairs once and it was gone for around a week. First I had to back up and clean my drives because I have important stuff that I don't want some Apple Store geek copying to a central server. This alone was a major hassle.

So what was the reason I had to send my whole system in for? A dead battery. They wouldn't replace my battery under warranty without having to take the whole computer and run diagnostics on it.

Bunch of f'ing middle managers making bad policies. Welcome to corporate america everone.

bczoom said:

Can you elaborate? If I were Apple, based on your experience, I'd be taking care of your situation by allowing the return.

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Unfortunately, I can't elaborate on my particular situation. I likely have said too much about that part. Still, the sad fact remains, I would positively not again purchase an iPhone regardless of incentives to do so. I thought Apple wanted honest opinions and feedback. That may be still be true, but their massive media spin machine is the only thing that is working as designed at this point. Their ability to stifle problems is unreal. I don't know of anyone else with an iPhone who likes the brick any better than I do yet the media reports would lead one to believe they are fantastic and there have been almost no problems. I promise you the reality is far from that spin.

If things do not improve rather soon, I'll give the iTurd to one of my kids and write it off as a complete loss rather than waste more time and aggrevation with it. At some point you have to cut your losses and move on. Having been "misinformed" about the date written down to return my iPhone does not exactly leave a good taste in my mouth. Apple does not give a rat's ass, but I assure you that it would have been less expensive for them to have taken this hunk of junk back than to stick me with it. There are numerous people who planned to purchase one until they've heard, and seen, how I've been treated and how bad the phone has performed. Oh well, I suppose I am the iFool....this time.

bczoom said:

I finally caught the commercial for the iPhone.

Click HERE

I wonder which option Brent likes the most.

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I just had to bump this back up. The last part, "a hard to use cell phone" is right on the money...that is, if the cell phone part works at all. But, don't forget, I'm the only person having issues.

Just another boring update to the running iPhone detailed review. My replacement phone promised to arrive this morning was a no-show. Apple says they will have it for me tomorrow. I assume I will be screwed and it will end up going back because I'm now gone to pick up my son from basic training at Ft. Benning (as I very clearly explained to them) and nobody will be there to sign for it until next week. Gee, what a shock, no cell phone for a week...again.

On the bright side, Apple's media spin about how wonderful their first weekend seems to be developing some major cracks. Apple first said they sold "over 500,000" that first weekend and that there were "very few if any" problems. Yeah, bullshit! Then Apple, under pressure, revised that first weekend sales to 240,000 with "a few activation snags that were immediately corrected". Now AT&T states that the number they received from Apple (Apple stores along with AT&T stores) sold a total of 140,000 iPhones the first two days with less than half of them getting activated that initial weekend. Hmm, who is leaking the truth against the wishes of Apple??

Dargo, see this phone

OK, I'm drifting off topic here but maybe the iPhone would make some customers happier if they made it compatible with the following.

Story HERE and an excerpt below.

The “gPod”, a phallic-shaped vibrator, is designed to respond automatically to sounds picked up by an accompanying handset, which can plug into anything from a telephone to a music player to a television.

The ¥25,000 ($243) gPod was one of a number of toys that went on public view today at Japan's first-ever sex toy expo in suburban Tokyo.

“You can use it in many ways, for example hooking it up to your mobile phone,” said Ichiro Kameda, the machine's inventor.

“The dildo vibrates through the same waves as a voice.

"So one of the ideas is that you can use it here in Tokyo when your boyfriend in New York is talking to you on the phone.”

Well, to be fair to Apple support, here is the latest:

Apple did send me a no-cost loaner iPhone to use while waiting for my iPhone to be repaired. Apple did cover the overnight shipping costs both ways again. The bad news was that, after 5 tries, the replacement iPhone could not be "activated" through Apple's disasterous activation process. Upon each attempt to activate the loaner phone, I received this message "iPhone activations are not available at this time. To activate your iPhone, please try again later." Needless to say, that really made me happy with Apple's activation process. I had waited that morning to leave to pick my son up from basic at Ft. Benning so I would have a working phone on the trip. After the time it took for 5 tries to activate, I simply had to leave. Count this as yet another case in point of how absolutely terrible Apple's activation process is.

Upon returning from the trip, I was able to activate the loaner iPhone on only the 2nd try. I sent my 2nd iPhone in for "repairs". The day after I sent the bad phone to Apple, I did receive an email notifying me that they did receive my phone. I thought that was a nice touch. That was yesterday, and so far, the loaner phone has worked just fine.

Much to my surprise, FedEx just appeared at my office. I thought they perhaps were delivering the goodies Apple had promised me, that I mentioned previously. No, it was another new iPhone. The note in the package said "After thorough diagnostic testing, it has been determined that a replacement iPhone is necessary". However disconcerting it is to already be on my 3rd iPhone, at least they did act quickly once they received my bad unit.

I don't have time today to screw around with their whacked activation process, so I'll try that either tonight or tomorrow. Now I have to wonder what happened to the promised extras I was to receive for all the trouble I've had....

I need to purchase a new notebook computer with my son soon leaving for VMI. Do I dare consider a Mac, or should I take it as "lesson learned" with the pathetic set of rules Apple has forced customers through? Although the people at Apple are friendly, and do follow up, the required activation process is a complete and total disaster. Worse yet, Apple is still running full tilt with their spin machine hiding the fact that they have a major problem with something as simple as activating their phones. It would seem that any reasonable company would have realized that their activation process is FUBAR, acknowledged that fact, and made appropriate changes. I am honestly concerned with the undeniable fact that Apple is extremely adept at sweeping problems under the rug and then they deny they exist. As much as I am tempted to try an Apple MacBook Pro, I have this huge problem with knowing how Mac spins problems and then hides them under the rug. Am I totally stupid for even still remotely considering a Mac computer??

Dargo said:

Am I totally stupid for even still remotely considering a Mac computer??

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Frankly, I can't believe you are considering! ............ my 2 cents

I think I can speak for Bob when I say that we are completely satisfied with our apple computers. I should have dumped my POS Sony PC along time ago!
Bonehead

Are you buying it for your son? What does everyone at his school use? I'd buy whatever he needs. If it's for you then a Mac would be OK there's always Parallels which lets you run Windows in a virtual machine.

Since it's related to the iPhone, rather than try to explain this "issue", I'll just post a link to a lovely lady explaining another side effect of the iPhone...iPhone bill

Maybe you can get something back from that AP-(P.O.S.)-LE thing.

Yeah, I'd like to; but I didn't pay the regular retail price for it to begin with. Long story, but the price still hasn't dropped to what it ended up costing me and, I've also received several "freebies" as well because of all the trouble I've had. I won't exactly qualify for the $100 offered for the early customers. Bummer. I'd take it if I could.

Fortunately, after an extremely rocky start, I've sort of reached an "understanding" with my iPhone. Somewhere between the replacement phones and the software "bug fixes", things have started to operate as I expected they should. I'm not quite ready to be any sort of spokesperson or advertiser for them, but I suppose you've noticed my extremely strong irritation has slowed and waned a bit with the iPhone.

I suppose I'd be really pissed if I'd been one to stand in line for hours/days and paid the full price for one and then had all the issues I had. I would have to say that the one addition I ended up with that has been the best was the Sure Music Adapter (or whatever they call it) that allows me to use any headphones to not only listen to music on my iPhone, but also send/receive calls and control the iPod portion of the iPhone with any headphones. The sound quality of music from the iPhone through my Sure E5's is quite amazing and I can also talk on the phone in relatively noisy environments with them using the Sure Music Adapter setup.

Dargo,

Don't take the iPhone with you on any international trips!

http://theinquirer.net/?article=42235

A HUMAN called Jay Levy says he has been stung by Apple's iPhone pact with AT&T after he took an Iphone on a Mediterranean cruise.
They didn't use their phones, but when they got back they had a 54-page monthly bill of nearly $4,800 from AT&T Wireless. The problem was that their three Iphones were racking up a bill for data charges using foreign phone charges. The Iphone regularly updates e-mail, even while it's off, so that all the messages will be available when the user turns it on.

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Holy crap!! I will be going on a business (well, sort of business) trip to Cancun next month. I guess I ought to check out their policy for there!

Oh, you gotta love this. This piece of iShit won't hold a Bluetooth connection so I have to deal with the totally incompetent Apple customer support people again. After F**king with them for 2 freaking days now, I get this f'ing email:

Dear Customer,

Thank you for contacting Apple.

To assist us in locating your phone, please visit register.apple.com to register your iPhone with Apple and provide us with current information.

Sincerely,

Apple Inc.


WTF??!! They sent me this damn phone, I didn't shit it out of my ass!!! It came directly from Apple!!!! How in the hell could a company that is even remotely competent need my help in "locating" my f'ing phone?! Did they lose count of how many of these pieces of shit they've shipped to unhappy customers??

I'm not sure which I am the most disappointed in; the iPhone itself or Apple's customer service. I honestly think it is Apple's customer service; or lack there of. Part of my draw to Apple was all the (obviously bullshit) bragging about how great their customer service is. I'd have to think that the actual iPhone was simply released ahead of time to recover some R&D money for Apple and have the general public serve as beta testers. The phone should eventually work and should be a decent device. However, Apple customer service has, over time, proven to be about the worst I've ever had with any electronics company. As I'd mentioned before, HP customer service puts Apple to shame. Hell, eMachine's customer service has put Apple's customer service to shame!!

Oh well, just another day in the life of the ongoing iPhone review. At this point, I would honestly have passed on trying an iPhone if they'd have paid me to use one. Maybe next year for them....

I'm assuming that Apple has dropped the price so much so fast because of all the trouble and they likely have the 2nd generation hardware for the iPhone ready and waiting but can't introduce them until they unload the glut of these 1st generation iTurds.

Dargo said:

Did they lose count of how many of these pieces of shit they've shipped to unhappy customers??

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Clearly you are wrong.

They lost track of how few they've shipped to HAPPY customers.

Hey, that "great" Apple customer support came through. They can't do anything about my Bluetooth issue, but have given me a $100 credit towards purchases in their Apple store. Hmm, I wonder it I should take that and get a 2 year warranty on the iPhony. There again, if they can't fix certain things, maybe I'll use it for options for the iPhony II that obviously is waiting in the wings.

Dargo said:

Hey, that "great" Apple customer support came through. They can't do anything about my Bluetooth issue, but have given me a $100 credit towards purchases in their Apple store. Hmm, I wonder it I should take that and get a 2 year warranty on the iPhony. There again, if they can't fix certain things, maybe I'll use it for options for the iPhony II that obviously is waiting in the wings.

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Take the money and buy a heavy bag to hang in your garage. Helps keep holes from appearing in your walls. Don't ask me how I know.
Bone

Ho hum, another month, another dead iPhone. Number 4 is on the way. At least I shouldn't have battery issues at 1 year from first purchase! Should I use part of my $100 credit on an extended iPhone warranty? I do sort of like the phone now (amazingly enough) when it works as advertised. Maybe 4th time will be the charm...

Hey, how wonderful; I received my replacement iPhone and iTunes recognizes it. Unfortunately, AT&T/Apple is back to the same "activation" problems that they had when they first rolled out the phone. I am again without any phone service and Apple says that "according to AT&T, they should have the "activation" issue fixed in a day or two. WTF???!!!!!

This is INSANE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


It is painfully obvious that Apple released this thing a year or so too early and their "activation" process is the worst cluster f**k in the history of customer service by any company! It's almost time for Apple to simply pull the plug on this iPhone and re-release it when they have a working model. The concept and layout is great; the problem is IT FLAT DOESN'T WORK and they are using the paying general public as beta testers.


My prediction: Apple will suffer a complete and total collapse such as they did in the late 80's when they were in competition with PCs. Without help from Microsoft, there would be no Apple. They made several blunders with their closed system and suffered from horrible hardware problems. In recent years, especially with the iPod, Apple has enjoyed a new resurgence. The very mistakes that all but put them completely out of business in the late 80's are what they are doing right now. Unless there are MAJOR changes with Apple; look for them to be gone, or looking for another bail-out, within the next 5 years. You simply cannot over-charge your customers, crap all over them, keep a closed operating system, use inferior hardware, and expect to survive. Sorry, but buh bye Apple

Are you going to join the class action lawsuit against Apple? Apparently some lady is asking for a $1,000,000 refund and expects everyone who bought the iPhone to get the same? Her logic is they defrauded her when the price was dropped.