At first I thought this was just a Rogers (”Canada’s most reliable network”) problem. The situation seemed to always involve me being in some area that you wouldn’t be surprised to have bad reception – so I thought nothing of it (apart from being a little annoyed)… until this last Friday, when I was making a call from home…

I know for a fact that there is a Rogers tower not too far from my house, and I also had “full reception” on my handset – so, why was it that when I made a call from my home that the other party couldn’t hear anything I was saying and hung up??

Good question – well, after some investigation, it turns out that my “fancy” iPhone had a hardware problem – basically, the microphone would only work if I applied pressure on the phone or if I was lucky and it just decided to work that moment.

Of course, when I finally figured out what the problem was, I was very annoyed to say the least – what would happen now? Do I take my phone to Future Shop where I bought it from and wait a month for them to send it to Apple to have it serviced? Damn it I should have bought that extended warranty! ……. but wait, I had a better idea – let me check on the Apple website and see what sort of services are offered at their retail stores??

I went to the Apple.ca website and went to the “Market Mall” store page – I saw there that I could make an appointment with an “Apple Genius” which would be able to give me some technical support – great no?

So I made an appointment for Saturday (the next day – I think I took the last appointment). When I arrived at the Apple store, I wasn’t really sure what to do… so I went to the back where the “Genius Bar” is. I looked up at this huge LCD that they had behind the counter, where I was happily surprised to see my name as “Next in line” to meet with an “Apple Genius”. Wow! Great!

I was then greeted by an Orange-shirted and very energized employee who had my name in their iPhone and checked me in… I was told to have a seat (in front of a bank of new Apple computers of course) and wait ’till my name was called.

Once I was called up, I explained my story to the representative – not knowing what to expect really… He listened to me and they just responded with “we need to swap your iPhone – let me see if we have any in-stock”. WHAT? I thought to myself… this is great, I have a problem, and they fix it – what a concept… !?

So needless to say, I walked out of the Apple store with a spanking new iPhone!

Moral of the story: relax, you bought a product from Apple – check with them first before freaking out!

~R

iPhone Wall Charger

I personally kept forgetting to do this until yesterday.

Getting it replaced is easy. Here’s what you need to do:

1. Take your iPhone + charger with you. No you don’t need to bring the cable with you.
2. Go to the Apple store nearest you. For those without an Apple store you can do it online by clicking here (then skip to step 5).
3. Go to the cash register in the Apple store.
4. Tell them you want to replace your recalled charger.
5. They will ask you for your iPhone serial number (Settings > General > About). If doing it online, then you will also need the last 4 digits of your iPhone’s IMEI number – it can be found in the same place you found the serial number. Note, I have not done it online, so this is as far as I can take you!
6. That’s it!

Now that wasn’t too hard was it? Pass the message on to any of your friends who are as lazy as me!

~ Rabee