Sucks to be me - From Blackberry to iPhone to Blackberry Again

Well I broke my iPhone. I dropped it at lunch today and the glass shattered.

I went off to the Apple Store last night to get it replaced.  Turns out that due to the fact that the screen is shattered and nothing else is wrong I will have to pay $250 to get it fixed.  If I had damaged the phone more I wouldn’t have to pay as it would be covered. 

Personally I think I should have kept the phone at the point they told me the damage was only cosmetic and then used the touch screen and cut my finger up and then asked them if they thought the damage was only cosmetic.  Also, what seems interesting to me is that each Apple Store seems to have a different policy on this broken screen issue.  I have gone online and seen that other Apple Stores have acted differently regarding this screen issue.

I think Apple is really missing the boat on this one.  Some teenage girl was in the store before me with two broken iPods.  These iPods were banged up, and on one the screen was not working.  They were each registered to different people.  Their tech guy took a look at them spent about 10 minutes on each trying to resurrect each before handing her new refurbished ones and sent her on her way.  I couldn’t get this kind of service on my iPhone. 

When they asked me if I wanted to have them ship the phone in right now, or wait and I could call Apple care, I told them I wanted them to ship the phone now and give me a loaner and ship the repaired phone to my home, they told me they couldn’t give me a loaner as they didn’t have any.  They also told me that they couldn’t ship the iPhone to my home.  The other guy a the ‘genesis bar corrected him and told me they could ship to my home. I then asked if they could swap it out with a refurbished model, and they said no.  To be honest, I’ve been treated better by Cingular reps on this one. 

Well, now I’m back on my Blackberry (which is charging slowly) and the repaired iPhone will be shipped back to me in 2 to 3 business days.

So here are the lessons learned

• There is something about cell phones that cause companies to start to suck
  • Apple’s iPhone is the bastard child of Apple Support
  • Apple needs to carry more loaner Phones
  • Different Policies with different stores
  • ‘Policies’ changing from day to day
• Going from iPhone to Blackberry is not fun
• iPhones dropped from waist height on a tile floor will cause the screen to break