48 hours without an iPhone

I stood in line on June 30 to get my iPhone. I was one of the MacFanatics (still am) who was willing to buy the point 0 version of a brand new technology. I was so excited because it was a graduation gift from aunts, uncles, cousins, and my sister. I used it constantly while I was moving and it was a godsend on our 2,500 mile trek from Texas to Maine.

And now, 7 months later, my precious iPhone succumbed to the "top half of touch screen quit working". Oh no! I tried the physical reset. I did the software restore. It didn't help. When I knew I was going to Boston I decided I could hobble on half a phone for 10 days until I could get to the Apple Store in Boston. But it's really hard to use a phone where only the bottom half works. If anyone's phone number had only 7, 8, 9, or 0 in it, I could call them (I have no contacts with only those digits in the phone number). I could look up contacts and finagle the list so that the contact was in the bottom of the screen. But as soon as I touched their name and the info page for that contact showed up, I couldn't call the first three numbers listed for them because they were above that line of demarcation. I could still connect the phone to my computer and sync it. So the people that I really needed to contact for whom I only had one number, I put in their one phone number on the home phone line, the work phone, the fax, and the mobile so that when I looked them up on the iPhone, I could press the mobile number (which might really be their home number) and reach them. It was getting pretty old pretty fast. I'm not sure if I was more excited to go to Boston to see my college friend or to get my iPhone fixed.

Then, the horrible snow came and I couldn't get out of town and down to Boston safely. I could talk to my friend I would've seen if I had gone, so it wasn't too bad that I didn't get to see her. But my iPhone! what was I going to do now?

I looked online and there's a support line just for iPhones. 1-800-MY-iPhone. Yep. It was free. I got a very nice young man named Neil who immediately said, "We'll take care of it." I called on a Friday and he promised that on Monday, a box would arrive and I would follow the directions, put my phone in the box, take off the label with my name on it and underneath would be the return label. I would give it back to the FedEx driver, and would receive back either my repaired phone or a replacement phone within 3-5 days. Wow. All at no expense to me. Gotta love the folks at Apple. :-)

And sure enough, Monday afternoon, the FedEx driver dropped off a box. This is what was inside:

The shipping box had foam in it with a cutout exactly the size of the little white box that would hold the phone. the box was that extra sturdy kind that you get from a fine jewelry store. Inside that box was a protective pouch that I was to put my phone in. There was a directions booklet and a stack of packing tape strips that could just peel off to seal the box back up for the return trip. Additionally, there was a little zip loc bag with a paper clip inside and a sticker on the outside showing how to pull the paper clip apart to make the tool needed to remove the SIM card. I've always referred to this unbent paper clip as "The Mac Tool". From waaaaaay back, that's been the official tool for doing things like ejecting a floppy disk from a stuck drive. It was just one of those brilliant, creative, good problem-solving solutions that Apple is so famous for.

And for those who won't read the simple 4 page mini-booklet of instructions, there's the sticker in the lid of the box that covers the basic critical information:

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The box arrived from Apple on Monday the 11th. The FedEx man didn't wait. I packed up the phone (after marveling at the beauty and simplicty and efficiency of the boxes and the process) and called FedEx. Tuesday the 12th, the FedEx man picked it up. Wednesday the 13th was the horrible ice/snow day. Thursday the 14th, I received the loveliest Valentine's Present--a new iPhone was in a sturdy shipping box direct from Apple's repair center in Fort Worth.

And look, it's another lovely box set. this time the phone is in a black box, very similar to the one that my brand new one arrived in just 7 short months ago, except there's no power cord or charger included.

And there's just one sticker inside the box this time. It shows how to re-insert the SIM card and how to sync your phone back to restore all the old data.

It's Apple. It's Magic.