I &heart; Apple Customer Service
A couple of weeks ago I thought I was receiving a record number of emails. So much so, that I grabbed my iPhone out of my pocket to see what the vibrating fuss was all about. Nothing, not a single email, text, nothing. Then it vibrated again. And again. And again. I noticed that just tapping slightly on the back of the case would result in a sustained vibration.
Not the worst thing that could have happened, but not something I’d choose form a list, that’s for sure. I call up Apple Customer service and talk to a guy named Bob who was fantastic. Fifteen minutes later, they’re sending me my replacement and I just have to send in my old vibrating iPhone within ten days.
By 9AM the next morning, the FedEx guy is handing me my brand new replacement. Not wanting to get hit with the $500 replacement fee for my 16GB version, I hustled the old phone (complete with pre-packaged/labeled/you-name-it return box) to FedEx Kinkos during lunch that day.
All was well in my world again and I was thoroughly impressed yet again with my Apple experience. Then I got home tonight. I was shocked to see a box that looked just like the one I sent to Apple. Did they have the shipping address wrong on the original label? Maybe Apple didn’t pay their FedEx bill? Nope. My old phone was back! And it was complete with the annoying vibration. I thought to myself, “how odd”. Then I read the note informing me that the phone had damage not covered under warranty and my credit card had been charged the $500 replacement fee. And here’s your useless iPhone back for good measure!
I immediately called Apple and was sent to a manager who had the great misfortune of listening to me unload on him. When I finished, he told me they didn’t honor the warranty because the phone got wet. Wet!?!?! Sure enough, the water test label is located in the dock plug area and after he explained it to me, I verified that it was indeed red which meant water had gotten in there at some point. But still, I pleaded.
“The vibration switch is on the top and I swear the phone has never gotten wet… except for maybe when I talk on it in the rain! Surely you’re not suggesting that I can’t talk on my $500 phone in the rain, right? Right!?!?!?”
I then requested to cancel my Apple Care service and told the manager I was now terrified of getting screwed by Apple on my second iPhone or, God forbid, my Macbook Air. Just when I was making the switch to all Apple products. Man!
Then I got put on hold. The manager came back on after looking at the pictures some more and admitted that that was the only water sensor that had turned red and that he would see what he could do. Five minutes later, they’re refunding my $500 charge and asking if that’s enough to make me happy. Well, duh. I then kind of felt like an ass and thanked the manager profusely and hung up the phone.
So there you go. An American company staffed with a customer service department that actually wanted their customer to be satisfied. I don’t know why I’m so shocked… no wait… I do.
So wherever you are tonight Mr. Apple Customer Service Manager, thanks again. We almost broke a wonderfully blissful streak of happy customer service calls but pulled it out at the last minute.
FYI, they sell “iPhone dock plugs” on eBay and I just ordered six of them. No water getting in my phone… ever. Oh, they sell Apple products at www.apple.com/store. Buy them up. You won’t regret it.
Macbook Air – Grey Screen of Death?
On the Macbook Air, if it boots into a dark grey screen saying “You need to restart your computer” and after you restart, you end up at the same screen again, do the following:
1. Turn the Macbook off by holding down the power button.
2. Press the power button to turn the Macbook back on.
3. Immediately press and hold the left Shift key until the Apple logo and progress circle appear. This will boot into “Safe Mode”.
4. Once into Safe Mode, go to MacintoshHD, and navigate to System/Library/Extensions/.
5. Delete the Bootcache.kext file and restart your Macbook Air.
6. The OS will tell you it will take a moment to rebuild the bootcache.kext file and eventually restart.
This fixed the problem for me and allowed me to move my files off in case the problem happens again. I have no clue WHY this happened but this at least addressed the problem of me being locked out of some VERY important files.
And…. I'm back in New York!
I barely got settled back in Kentucky before I was headed back to New York again. This time I brought my wife, Robin, so some of the Flickr pictures might look familiar since I took her to a lot of the places I’ve already been.
Times Square Mayhem!
So I heard all the honking and screaming outside of my hotel in the Upper West Side. At first, I just planned to go down to the street level and enjoy the scene.
However, I was quickly swept up in a group of French men and women on their way to Times Square. The subway was absolutely filled to the brim and my new friends from France knew far more about NY transportation than I. Thank God for that… I would have ended up in New Jersey if left to my own devices.
I walked out of the subway tunnel at the Times Square station on 42nd and the chants of “Oh-Bah-Ma!” and “Yes-We-Can!” we’re deafining. Every screen on every building had an image of Obama or a live feed of his acceptance speech complete with Closed Captioning that drew outrageous cheers from the 100,000+ people assembled in Times Square.
I was approached by a young black gentleman who put his hand on my shoulder and expressed his heartfelt point - ”You people aren’t the only smart ones. We’re smart too and now we’ll prove it to you.” I told him he was preaching to the choir and he need only look around at the vast majority of white people arm and arm with their black brethren in a triumphant celebration.
Change? Yes we can. Yes… we can. This disenfranchised “fiscal conservative” who proudly voted for Mr. Obama earlier this morning was truly humbled by the events of this evening. We truly live in interesting times and I couldn’t think of a better night to be in the Big Apple.
Check out the photos I took here @ Flickr.