The Journey of Craig's iPhone 7 - The Saga Continues!

[Craig]

My iPhone 7?s unique journey.

I ordered it on 9/9 at 12:20 am, and it arrived on time on 9/16. It had a lovely trip from China, to Alaska, to Kentucky, to Seattle WA and eventually here to Yakima.

Apple iPhone 7 128GB Matte Black. Looks great, very happy.. until.

The sim card from my iPhone 6 would not register my number on the phone. The SIM that came with it, had issues, so off to a local AT&T store! AT&T resolved the SIM issue and we?re off and running, so we thought.

Got home and tried to restore from backup using my laptop on iTunes. I have not had issues with iTunes before, but now I did.. Every time I plugged my phone into the computer iTunes crashed. Over and over and over again.

Ok, will restore from iCloud. 2-hours later, my phone said it?s done? Great, or so I thought. Now an old gmail.com address I used for the App Store, before iCloud was a thing is coming back to haunt me. Somewhere in the 300 apps or songs or whatever.. there is an old item that is linked to that old account. Which one? No one knows.

The pop ups every 10-seconds was crazy. Add to that, I could not turn on iCloud backup. I called Apple. 1st level support, 2nd level support, finally assigned a 3rd level person, who I can contact as needed. Regardless I must set up the phone as new and download only apps I know that are purchased on the current account.

Did that, spent 3-days of my spare time getting the phone just right. Now I am using my other computer with iTunes to sync my music, my tones, my books, my photos. Nope.. no such luck. If I had 100 songs, it would move 1-2 over and say done. I would have the listing of the other 98 songs, but they are grayed out. Hours upon hours of dealing with this. Purchased a 3rd party program for $50 that is supposed be better and easier than iTunes that does not work either. Sees my phone ? the time as either an LG or Samsung. Really? Working with a PayPal dispute to get that money back.

Meanwhile Apple is running diagnostics on my phone. Getting errors. My BT is not working right. I connect and disconnect. Not working in my car 8 out of 10 times. I had to delete the pairing over and over.

Now every time I open an app, the screen flickers 2-3 times. That?s new! Phone is losing settings, can?t read email accounts, it?s a mess.

Apple is sending me a new phone FedEx overnight. I will have it tomorrow. Let?s hope this backup on iTunes or iCloud will work. I don?t want to set up as new again. Of course I had to put $900 on a CC to insure I will be sending the old phone back. Wish I did not put that nice screen protector on the phone.

Leaving town on Saturday. Will I have a working phone? Who knows.. I do have a Genius Bar appointment on Tuesday 9/27 about 195 miles away (I will be close, as I will be in Oregon), I am in WA State now. Oregon is out of phones, it?s why they are sending me one FedEx.

If I can get the new phone working and it?s good, I can send the other back via FedEx Office and close the appointment in Tigard Oregon. If not, I will bring both to Tigard and say ?FIX? and see what happens.

Thanks for the platform to voice my iPhone journey. I hope yours was less dramatic.

 

[Tartarus]

Wowsers.. I really hope everything will be solved in a short manner of time.
Best of luck to you with this.

 

[MooMooPrincess]

Keep us updated!

 

[Craig]

New phone got here about 11am in a "plain white case", with no cables etc.. and a FedEx return label. At least I got a new SIM Key out of it. Sad they don't give you those anymore.

New phone seems good now. It crashed when upgrading to 10.0.2 and required a "data recovery" I have to add a few items that don't seem to transfer even with an encrypted backup, like cards inside Wallet. Will do more testing before wiping my old phone and sending back to Apple via FedEx. Sad though I have return my phone with an expensive tempered glass screen protector.. but can't move it from phone to phone.

 

[eyecrispy]

Ugh. What an ordeal! I hope the replacement does you better. I'm gonna say that even though glass screen protectors aren't supposed to transfer, I've successfully transferred them a handful of times. The last one I did was crap on one corner but he rest was ok. Anyway, worth a try at least.

 

[TheRewardisCheese]

I myself have successfully reused glass screen protectors. Just peel it off very carefully as to not snap it and then to reapply it, the trick I use is to take packing tape or scotch tape and cover the entire adhesive side as to remove any dust or dirt that may get on it when removing it from the old phone. Then peel off the tape and immediately reapply it to the new phone.

 

[Craig]

Here is the final installment for now.

Apple told me to go to the Apple store to return my phone OR go to FedEx and do the return label. They made me a Genius Bar appointment at the Tigard store. I live in Yakima so it's 230 miles. I was coming to Albany OR so it was "sorta" enroute, but about 20+ min out of my way not counting stop-go Portland traffic. Also the Bridgeport Mall in Tigard is packed packed on a Saturday. So I finally get there, find parking and make it to the store. Would think they're giving iPhones away there, it's like a Sardine can in there. They got in about 100 phones that morning. AT&T around the corner. Sitting on their thumbs, zero phones.

Anyway.. one person told me to wait (took my name on the iPad), gave me to a 2nd person who gave me to a 3rd person, who ad no clue to what I was asking. They said they don't take phones back for Apple. I gave them the case number, etc.. they looked it up and said.. I guess we can take it and send it back to them. I said will I have a receipt proving I dropped it off? They said no.. we just toss them in a bin and send them back.

I decided to pass. There goes another 2-hours of my life I will never get back.

Drove to a FedEx center not far away, got a receipt, scanned it and sent to Apple.

New phone seems to work find. Still having BT issues staying connected to my car.

iTunes on my laptop has to be removed, all traces from the computer and Regedit and reinstalled. Seems to be working now. Tried using a 3rd party tool AnyTrans, but it wiped all media off my phone.. so oops.

So this is currently the end of my journey. Turns out to be the most expensive and time consuming iPhone for me ever. Days of time, hours upon hours, driving, lines, time on phone, 3 resets, and tossed out a good screen cover.

But it's working now.. so until iPhone 8 ... this journey is at an end (this is normally where in the movies, the dead guy's hand twitches.. assuming there is a sequel)..