After the latest op system upgrade push to my iPhone by Apple is when this hell began. The common thread through all if this you'll pick up pretty quickly, the absolutely nonsensical processes these people dream up.
So, the touch-screen function started going wonky in particular zones on the phone. Off to the AT&T store locally for a pleasant (yes, pleasant) discussion a week ago today. The conclusion was I needed to contact Apple support.
A phone tree down, one that actually was pretty benign as you set up an appointment for a callback, and an equally pleasant talk with someone obviously much closer to the Ganges than me at the time. We hook this thing up through my son's Mac, the tech has a look, says there is a flurry of issues with the latest push, we upload the files to the cloud, reload the operating system of the phone, and pull everything back onto the phone, and it works. Hurray!
Three hours later it goes stupid again.
The next day we call back, get our appointment, another pleasant chap gets on. By now Apple has a patch which we download. It works! Hooray!
Three hours later it goes stupid again.
The next day we call back, get our appointment, and a pleasant lady gets on. A description of "stupid" is probably in order at this point. There are two parallel lines going down the screen within which no touch will initiate a response. Unfortunately, the answer button lies partially within, as does the off button and several key letters on the keyboard, E, S, X primarily.
She says its got to go to an Apple store for eval and repair, the nearest of which is two hours from me. However, there is a big-box chain in the US called Best Buy, and they can do this as a contractor. They are an hour away, so that's the choice.
So, she arranges for Best Buy to contact me for, yep, an appointment.
A very pleasant lady from Best Buy calls and we set a Sunday afternoon appointment, Sunday being how far in the week this deathmarch has so-far lasted. So, off we go, arriving a little early, queue behind the inevitable grumpy, abusive, and out-of-depth old guy, and finally make it to the counter. A pleasant chap goes through the process, determines a new screen assembly is required, says it will be an hour and $130.
Pay the lad, off to get a late lunch, back in an hour, and the back room is still wrestling with it. Add another hour and we pick it up, having been regaled with tales of trial and tribulation, how the new screen "wouldn't fit" so the tech re-assembled with the old one and once again restored the operating system, they refund my $130 and (four hours and some petrol later) it works! Huzzah!
Three hours later it shits the bed.
Yesterday, back to AT&T. The idea is this thing is out of warranty, half paid for, Apple is blowing my life away with process but no result, how easy is it to just get a simple reliable flip-phone, swop the SIM card, and make the best of a worst case situation.
A very pleasant young lady, she explains that one has to get a new line to add a phone even with a simple flip, since this phone is still under a contract. However, if I buy the service plan which happens to be in an "open enrollment" window this month, I can have AT&T send me a new phone, take the new and old to the store, they swop the card and data, then send the old one to AT&T. The plan cost and deductable is still less than the screen replacement would have cost (even though this still sounds like an OS update issue to me) so that's where we are as of this morning.
I made a special effort to be cheery and pleasant through all this (my son is a bit concerned even though I told him I was making a social experiment of this by so doing), and everyone else has been as pleasant and helpful as they can be. The process itself is absolutely ludicrous; so ludicrous in fact that once the new one is to hand we might swop my wife's out with it and I just go back to a flip. The reliability and cost-effectiveness of just replacing a dead $50 flip rather than a weirdly wonky $700 iPhone that needs periodic operating system upgrades and that nobody really understands why and how it does go wonky is very compelling.
My son's generation as a whole think this is a perfectly reasonable system that reflects good customer and product support. They've been imbued with the notion that their time invested in this silliness is not part of the value calculation, especially if this all can ge done inline with no interaction with other humans.
Tell me again how these enrich our lives by saving time and effort?
Meanwhile, dear old Poppet is in an apparent old-age decline. I'm very concerned. The office staff at the vet apparently isn't, as they say the next available appointment isn't until 01 Sept. Something about they are overwhelmed and can't get help because of covid or the economy; the usual excuses used by businesses to justify shit service.
That dog doesn't hunt, anymore, not 'way over here on this side of the puddle. There has been plenty of time to get the faeces cohesive again and, if you've done nothing but make excuses, at this point you really deserve to shut your doors. That goes for the "supply chain issues" and blaming things in this country on the Russians and the Ukes.
Now it's just down to lazy Americans too busy spreading their brand of hate amongst each other to actually work together and move on. It's so much easier than actually doing anything. What a ludicrous and loathsome "culture" this has become.
Message Thread
« Back to index