So the magic day has arrived … I’m out of contract on my iPhone 3G *deep joy*

Time to change to a better value tariff so off I headed to O2 in Bolton. I knew what I wanted was a tariff called Simplicity 20 for iPhone … if only acquiring it had been simple. Sadly, it was a complete disaster, for the full horror of the day take a listen to MacBites episode 40.

The store staff had clearly had no training in what was available to cater for the specific needs of iPhone customers. A glaring omission given that all the customers who purchased an iPhone 3G on the day of release are out of contract this month. The staff were all most helpful and cordial but this didn’t translate into a smooth transaction when they were unaware of the difference between a Simplicity tariff and a Simplicity for iPhone tariff.

For the record this is the difference:

Simplicity (During January promotion) – £20

• 700 Free voice minutes (100 minutes more than usual)
• 700 Free text messages (100 texts more than usual)
• 1 free bolt-on (they recommend unlimited internet)
• No visual voice mail
• No free wifi

Simplicity (After January promotion ends) – £20

• 600 Free voice minutes
• 600 Free text messages
• 1 free bolt-on (they recommend unlimited internet)
• No visual voice mail
• No free wifi

Simplicity 20 for iPhone – £20

• 600 Free voice minutes
• 1200 Free text messages
• 2 free bolt-ons (they recommend unlimited internet and unlimited wifi)
• Includes visual voice mail

The Best Way to proceed?

From my experiences I’d by-pass the stores, they don’t seem to have a clue what is the best option for iPhone customers coming out of contract, and call O2 directly. If given a choice, which you should be if ringing via your iPhone, select the option to speak to the cancellations department. The option actually connects you to a department called Retentions who seem to be the only people at O2 who have any knowledge of the existence of the iPhone version of the Simplicity tariff.

Tell the Retentions department you want to switch to Simplicity 20 for iPhone with 600 free minutes, 1200 free texts, 2 bolt-ons and visual voice mail. If they deny all knowledge of its existence ask to speak to a supervisor and/or show them this screen capture of my O2 account … it really exists!!

You might have to wait 24 hours for everything to be activated and you might have to manually reconfigure your settings. One of the side effects of changing tariffs was that the phone reset itself and failed to connect to the 3G network. This was easily rectified by entering the following settings into the General > Network > Cellular Data Network of the phone:

The only other gotcha I encountered was having to set Visual Voice Mail up again from scratch but this shouldn’t be necessary if O2 transfer you to the correct tariff in the first place. Being without my visual voice mail made me realize that it was a feature of the iPhone that I had greatly under-appreciated … a mistake I won’t make again

Good luck with your tariff transfers and I’d love to hear how you get on so be sure to leave me a comment below!

Within days of getting my iPhone 3G in the summer of 2008 I’d found a real time saving feature on the keyboard for entering URL extensions and blogged about it too at Quick URL Entry on an iPhone.

Well after the v.3 update not only is the feature still there but the range of extensions has been expanded.

Ireland will forever thank you

Nice attention to detail there Apple!

Version 2

Version 3

So after a fantastic night chatting with MacBiters in the MacBites chat room during WWDC I eagerly downloaded the release version of Safari and installed it.

While I’m installing I ponder the slightly surprising decision to revert the top mounted tabs to their original location but I’m sure I’ll get used it again.

Trouble is after downloading it and installing it I didn’t get as far as seeing the tabs. Instead I was greeted with this:

I immediately recognize the TastyAppsAVPlugin referred to as being the plug-in aspect of Web Snapper from Tasty Apps.

A simple matter of uninstalling Web Snapper, confirmed by the Web Snapper FAQ. Just to be sure though I use AppZapper which removes a couple of plist files in addition to the Web Snapper application in the Applications folder.

I tried again but no joy, Safari 4 still couldn’t get past the error message.

A little more digging around the file system and I found the solution.

There were two copies of a file called TastyAppsAVPlugin.bundle in the following locations:

Macintosh HD > Users > UserName > Library > Application Support > SIMBL > Plugins

and

Macintosh HD > Library > Application Support > SIMBL > Plugins

Deleting both these files solved the problem and I’m happily running the release version of Safari 4.

I do hope Tasty Apps manage to get Web Snapper working correctly with Safari 4 though as I use it almost every day. It allows you to save a copy of an entire web page (i.e. beyond the fold) in PDF format bypassing the print.css and without requesting the URL again which makes it perfect for making copies of receipts during online purchases.

I hate it when new toys break old favourites

UPDATE

A quick mail to TastyApps support and I’m informed that the offending file actually belongs to another of their applications, VideoBox. They already had a revised version available.

So I removed the version of VideoBox I had installed and download the latest versions of both Web Snapper and VideoBox. I installed both and yes everything now works perfectly, in fact I think VideoBox is working better than it did before!

So disaster truly diverted and peace is restored to my Safari world

BIG thanks to the support team and developers at TastyApps who got the fix out in record time.

I’ve had enough

So where were we up to with the story of the repair from hell?

Oh yes Friday, 24 April 2009 no news, status “Repair in Progress”.

Worse than that I haven’t had any communication from the Store regarding my e-mail sent 4 days ago. This is despite a promised investigation, by the staff member identified only by a first name, I have heard nothing at all from anyone.

Chasing Smoke

So it’s Monday morning, still no reply to last week’s e-mail.

Unbelievable.

A follow up is required but I have no intention of running through the whole sorry saga again. I only need to know one thing are they bothering to address my concerns or not?

I’m up early and send a follow up e-mail just after 6am asking that very question.

Good Grief

Remember the date and time … 14:11 on 27 April 2009 … I receive a telephone call from, another, unidentified Apple Store employee proudly announcing that my iMac is now repaired and ready for collection.

Still no reply regarding the e-mail I sent at 6am.

No I speak too soon!!

A Reply

19:00. Yes, finally a reply to the, by now, several e-mails I have sent to various staff members regarding this matter.

Three sentences. Yes, three whole sentences. The essence of which is he’d like to ring me and discuss the situation.

You’ve got to be Joking

Judging by the fact that everything that could possibly have gone wrong with the repair has done if anybody thinks I’m prepared to “chat” about it on the telephone they are mistaken.

I reply asking if there’s some reason why he can’t just answer the questions posed in the original e-mail in writing as requested, oh let me see now, yes, a whole eight days ago!

Another Reply

Wow, we’re on a roll, another reply.

Sadly, the only apology was a repetition of his earlier comments regarding the length of time it took him to address the points raised. The rest of the reply is two long rambling, incoherent, grammatically lacking, paragraphs aimed at absolving all concerned of any and all responsibility for everything.

Not responsible? How about:

1. Telling me to bring the Mac in at any time and then refusing to deal with it
2. Failing to complete the paperwork correctly
3. Losing my telephone number
4. Failing to contact me
5. Denying there was anything wrong with the machine
6. Insisting I attend a second futile Genius Bar appointment to do nothing more than bring the empty box home
7. Having rude and aggressive staff manning the Genius Bar
8. Failing to address the legitimate concerns of a customer in a timely manner
9. Needing two reminders before replying to a complaint
10. Taking 22 days to “repair” my iMac when it was a two hour job

He reiterates the contents of the earlier telephone call from Mr. Anonymous and proudly proclaims: “On a happier note, we have fixed your Mac and it is now ready to be picked up.”

Now while that is good news if he thinks he’s going to get away with never addressing the circumstances surrounding this farce of a repair he’s sadly deluded. In fact it’s worse than that now as he’s made incoherent denials of several of the facts. Including just how rude the Genius on duty was and there can never be an excuse for that.

Moreover, he made excuses for their failure to contact me at any point saying they didn’t have my telephone number. Yes, the telephone number I spent the best part of two days ensuring they had after they made a complete mess of the initial paperwork.

I was assured that the error had been rectified whilst I was on the telephone. If it was not rectified, as he is now claiming, then this was another misrepresentation from the Store. However, that still does not explain an inability to contact me. If they’d tried actually using the telephone number they’d have discovered their error and the obvious course of action would have been to use my e-mail address and contact me that way instead.

Needless to say that did not happen.

Other gems from this “deny it all” mail included:

- Me reporting too many problems with the machine.

What I had actually done was give a comprehensive account of the issues I had seen with my Mac during it’s functional decline.

My thinking was the more information I was able to provide the more rapid and accurate the diagnosis should have been.

- A complete denial of what the Genius said on my second visit about the screen captures showing a definite software fault.

The Genius I saw INSISTED the problem was software related. He was completely unequivocal about it, saying he had seen it before.

Now, according to this e-mail he had only said it “might” be software related.

Luckily for me, I was not alone when I took this Mac in for repair and the person with me heard the rude and hostile comments made by the Genius in question.

- Not enough room in store for boxes.

A classic!! Try fixing some of them and there would be plenty of room.

Worst of all it contained no assurance that this type of treatment would never be repeated. A critical point given I have AppleCare on every other Apple product I own.

My Turn Again

So here I go again. Whether this iMac is fixed or not (and I have my doubts) I still want the issues I have raised addressing in a full and coherent manner.

I draft another e-mail that demolishes his ramblings point by point in the politest possible terms.

Yes, I am still displaying the utmost restraint and no I don’t know how I’m managing it either.

Collection

Wednesday, 29 April 2009. The great day arrives and I head off to collect my Mac, my dutifully repaired Mac … nothing can go wrong now can it?

It didn’t augur well when arriving at the Genius Bar all the staff vanish before I’d manage to utter a word. Oh well I could wait. So I did, for almost 20 minutes before a Concierge appeared and taking the paperwork disappeared in to the back of the store.

After another wait she returned with a second Concierge in tow carrying my iMac. Not in protective covering as I’d been promised of course. He dumped it on the Genius Bar and left.

The original Concierge got it cabled up and uttered a memorable line I’m still bemused about now. She said “Don’t worry if it takes longer to boot than normal, that’s because it’s been repaired.” What? I was hoping it would have been returned to it’s former glory not rendered sluggish and lethargic by it’s Apple Store sojourn.

However, I wasn’t about to be drawn by this statement because I was by now examining the machine. Now you need to know that I look after my tech toys, extremely well. This particular iMac arrived and was unboxed next to the desk it has lived on since it’s arrival. It was carefully placed there the day it arrived and it’s never been moved since. When it arrived at the Apple Store it was in pristine condition. Not a speck of dirt anywhere and not a single finger print on the screen.

I know you know what’s coming next. Yes, it was filthy. It was covered in dust and a sticky residue (I didn’t dwell on the source of that I can tell you). The screen was literally covered in fingerprints. I was speechless. Is it not basic practice to clean a machine before returning it? Certainly after all the other problems.

I mention this to the Concierge, she looks at me blankly. She then wants me to show her the screen captures of the previous problems. Shouldn’t be a problem as I’d left copies in a folder on the desktop. Only problem is they’re not there now. She attempts to explain to me that I can use Spotlight to find files on a Mac: stop laughing … you know I’m a system engineer and I know I’m a system engineer, she had obviously got me confused with an idiot. I tell her they’re not there and she tells me I must have been mistaken in thinking I’d left them there.

That was not the wisest move on her part. I explain that I do have a more than passing familiarity with the basic functioning of a Mac and she heads for the hills leaving me in the … oh dear, I nearly said capable then … hands of one of the Genius Bar staff.

I reiterate my previous comments regarding the deplorable state of the machine to the Genius, he agrees and cleans both the screen and the case.

I then set about testing it. It was unlikely to completely fail in the time available but one thing I could definitely check for was the electronic buzz that was previously evident when the brightness of the screen was reduced. Yes, despite the thumping “music” being pumped throughout the store I could still hear it. The Genius denied he could hear it saying if it was there it was within the bounds of what was acceptable. Surprise, surprise. I explained I have personal access to 3 other iMacs and all are completely silent when making the same changes to the settings. This made no difference.

So the iMac was packed back into it’s well travelled box but not before I notice that the plastic cover that should be attached to the metal plinth on which the iMac stands was severely scratched and completely detached from the support. All attempts to reattach it failed and it travelled home in the bottom of the box.

But, at least it was home … right?

… more to follow …

My iMac

As those of you who follow me on Twitter or those who have heard the Mac20Q Roundtable Podcast or the International Mac Podcast will know I am the *not so* proud owner of a sick iMac right now. Many of you have contacted me with advice and/or support for which I publicly thank you all now. I thought for posterity I should detail the whole sorry saga, here goes …

My iMac is a late 2006 built to order 24 inch model, 2gb RAM, 250gb hard drive and a 256mb graphics card.

The main built to order element was the graphics card. Important to me since I work in Creative Suite extensively and you can never have too much RAM or a graphics card with too much memory.

Since arriving in December 2006 it has served me well.

The Problem

Or at least it had served me well until late in 2008 when an intermittent, but annoying, fault developed.

The first indication there was something wrong was a string of multi-coloured pixels appearing inside various windows. It wasn’t something I had seen before and resizing the window or moving it between monitors in my dual monitor setup cured the issue, at least temporarily. As stated it was annoying but not a show stopper at that stage.

I have AppleCare on all my equipment but even so running off at the first sign of an issue the occurrence of which couldn’t possibly be reliably predicted or forced would only frustrate the repairer and me.

By January the problem had been more frequent and more severe. Instead of just a single line of rainbow pixels I had whole patches of the screen showing various things: either a solid block of colour, static or distorted windows.

However, despite the fact the symptoms were worse they still weren’t predictable. Moving a window between monitors or resizing it still rectified the issue. The system was fully up to date and it happened in various applications or even just running Finder at times.

The increasing severity of the issue meant I was coming to terms with the realization that I would have to be parted from my baby while it went in for repair but, and this was a big but, other than describing what I was seeing how could I prove what I was seeing? Obviously, I’d tried capturing it in screenshots but using the built in screen capture tools didn’t work as activating them often forced the screen to redraw which corrected the display prior to the capture.

Taking photographs was fine but I felt they weren’t really clear enough to show the issues. LittleSnapper came to my rescue and I managed to capture the various issues I was seeing over the period of a few weeks.

While resizing the affected window and/or dragging it to my second monitor tended to clear the problem, over time the only way to clear them was to go into the System Preferences Desktop settings and selecting a different wallpaper before changing it back again. This was fast becoming tedious.

It still wasn’t an easy decision to take it in for repair as I had no idea how long I would be without it and there’s never a good time to be without your main machine.

Making the Decision

The decision was made for me when I was about to deliver the opening address in an online conference and the machine threw a kernel panic … I can assure you it wasn’t the only one throwing a panic!! I dashed from my office into my studio and managed to persuade the MacBook Pro to play ball just in time to calmly introduce the evening’s speaker.

I spent the hour long presentation considering my options with the iMac. The conclusion was there really was no option other than to take it in for repair.

Preparing for Repairing

Reaching that sad realization was one thing but the next hurdle was completing all the necessary things that you generally only recall after the event! At a minimum I would have to:

• Image the system with SuperDuper!
• Remove all my data
• Deactivate the activated software
• Remove auto-logins for services such as DropBox, ZumoDrive and Evernote

So ensued a long period of cloning, backup, and software engineering.

This process was even more complicated than I had anticipated.

I managed to deactivate the necessary software and create an image but then the machine began to fail even more drastically.

The first thing that happened was that the iMac screen froze and the machine refused to turn off. There were numerous pixels stuck on various colours at this stage. I pulled the plug, waited 5 minutes, then plugged in again but it refused to boot at all. Leaving it off overnight I was able to boot it again and after taking the time to remove some data I was able to boot using the Leopard DVD but then when I reached the screen where you select the destination for the install there were no drives shown at all. I loaded up the Disk Utility and although this could see the drive it could not see any partitions on the drive so the space where I could choose my destination was completely empty.

I’d decided at this stage to just take it in as it was but I did leave it stood at the Leopard “select partition” screen for 2 hours while I did other work. Deciding I better turn the thing off before it completely self destructed I turned round to see my single partition was now displayed as an available installation location!!

I selected it and did a complete erase and install. This did not cure the problem and the whole machine is now seriously too erratic to use. Unfortunately the symptoms were intermittent enough that I was still worried about being without the machine only to get it back with them unable to find the fault. Hence, taking all the screenshots.

I then needed an appointment at the Genius Bar. This appointment based thing is a beautiful system until you need an appointment urgently and the first they have is days away but I managed to book myself and my iMac in for first thing Monday morning.

The Big Day

My nearest Apple Store is only 2 miles away at the Trafford Centre, in South Manchester, so leaving the house with 30 minutes to spare what could possibly go wrong?

Oh dear with the benefit of hindsight that’s a rhetorical question if ever I heard one!

My first problem was that the traffic on the motorway was being slowed down to 30 miles an hour with all the overhead signs insistently flashing “incident”. Luckily I was leaving at the first junction so there I am breaking my arm patting myself on the back that I’d missed the worst of the traffic. They do say pride comes before a fall don’t they?

The Trafford Centre entrance I use is only yards from the motorway so minutes later I was making my way to the car park, or I thought I was. As I reached the actual car park entrance I could see the barriers were locked down, all of them, including the barrier that is actually broken and provides quick entry when the Centre is shut. Not only were they locked but they were also guarded, lest the peasants revolted I suspect.

I navigated my way from car park to car park until I could see this wasn’t some isolated problem it was centre wide and necessitated some shrewd manoeuvers to extricate myself from the queue for my preferred car park.

Now anyone who has visited the Trafford Centre can testify the surrounding roads were never intended to carry the volume of traffic the centre generates and this is especially acute outside Selfridges where the narrow road also carries all the local traffic for Asda and CostCo. Suffice it to say it’s never quiet and this was not a normal amount of traffic.

My only option was to divert into the Asda car park and re-group. I managed to locate a perfect parking space with a full view of all that was happening at the Trafford Centre opposite.

There were people streaming out of the Centre, which had only been open for 10 minutes at this stage. The place was also crawling with police and the force helicopter was insistently buzzing overhead.

Luckily my iPhone was fully charged. My first call was to the Apple Store to inform them I couldn’t get in to the Centre never mind the store. They were aware of an incident but had no further details. I asked them if it would be possible for me to bring the machine in later in the day once the situation had resolved itself. He went away to check and returned telling me I could take it in anytime that day and they would deal with it. He even apologized for the inconvenience … sadly that proved to be the high point of my dealings with Apple in this regard.

The next call was home to advise I would be late back. This was followed by a swift Twitter to see if anyone had any idea what was going on. No-one local could find anything but Gav came to my aid with details suggesting there was an armed gang on the loose and the police were giving chase … yes around the Trafford Centre! Ever had one of those days?

The traffic was unrelenting and with no sign of the Centre opening again or the police having caught their man I made the decision to go home and try again later. That was when I tried starting the car … notice the tried in there? Yes, the car was not having it. It was turning over nicely but showing no sign whatsoever of actually starting the engine. Cursing I vacated the vehicle and got the bonnet up. I checked all the basics, no sign of trouble in there. It was going to have to be a job for the RAC.

The RAC had kindly provided an 0800 number, free from all phones except mobiles (handy when you’re in a car … NOT). Luckily I was speaking with Mike at the time and using that fantastic site SayNoTo0870 he found a landline number I could use. The RAC were most helpful, I explained the problem, outlined where I was and gave them details of the ongoing police incident to pass on to their mechanic prior to his arrival.

Within minutes they had rung back and apologetically told me it would be an hour and 15 minutes before they could get to me. I didn’t think that was too bad in the circumstances. I settled down to wait when my eyes alighted on a sign in the car park informing me that there was an automatic fine for cars staying in the car park over 2 hours. Needless to say I’d been there well over an hour already. So ensued more phone calls. I located a telephone number for the actual store via their web site and explained my predicament to the Customer Services representative. She was most obliging and assured me I’d be fine and incur no penalty. Very understanding of them I thought.

Now all I needed was one of the armed gang to jump out of the adjacent shrubbery and issue a directive to “drive”!! The way my day was going that would have made it complete

Luckily that didn’t happen and in fact I’d no sooner hung up on the Asda Customer Services representative when my phone rang and it was the RAC engineer telling me he was 5 minutes away. What fantastic service, 15 minutes from my initial call and he was under the bonnet agreeing with me it wasn’t anything engine related.

He tracked it down to an electrical fault which he could bypass to get the car started but it would need a long term repair. The mechanic knew of a local auto-electrician and we headed off to their garage … with my iMac still in the back I might add.

I was having visions of dragging the thing back home on a bus when the RAC man said he’d take me and it back home. A kindness I think he had second thoughts about when he saw the size of the box. It took a bit of a reorganization of his van to make enough room for it but finally we managed to squeeze it in between his trolley jack and a large tool box. Oh boy I really know how to enjoy myself don’t I? LOL

I spent the rest of the day waiting for the call that my car was ready and with only minutes to go before closing it was done. As good as new and the garage owner even said he’d stay at the garage until I could get there to collect it. Again, what great service.

Finally There

So off I go again, iMac in the back and high hopes of getting it into Apple before close of business.

We arrived in the Apple Store at 17:20, I explained what had happened and explained what I had been told on the phone earlier in the day. For clarity that was, bring it in anytime today and we’ll deal with it.

Trouble was they had no intention of dealing with it without me rebooking a Genius Bar appointment with a Mac Genius. Despite two of these being stood at the Genius Bar doing nothing I was told the earliest they could arrange an appointment was 20:30 … over 3 hours away. Are they joking? Sadly, they weren’t.

I asked why I’d been told anytime that day was fine when there was an at least 3 hour period with no one available to deal with anything Mac related without an appointment. No answer. He returned to the Genius who again refused to do anything to assist.

I couldn’t believe that the worst service of the day was from the company I’d expect the best service from. I again explained why I was so unhappy with their suggestion and finally they agreed to take the iMac in for service.

I gave them as much information as I could, it went on for pages and was complete with screen captures. I was then assured they would call me with their diagnosis as soon as possible.

Now I know they had the correct phone number at that point because I’d just hiked all the way back to the car when they rang and asked me to go back because they had completed the paperwork incorrectly. So back I go and wait around for another 25 minutes while they correct their mistake.

I get back to the car for a second time to discover that in transferring the information from one system to another they had managed to remove my phone number from my repair and replace it with a completely different number. I immediately rang them to get them to rectify this fundamental mistake but no-one answered the phone. Constantly on hold for 40 minutes before I gave up.

The next morning I try again and finally get through to someone who assures me he has corrected this and they’ll be in touch as soon as they have tested it.

Waiting … and Waiting

With all the information and screenshots I was able to provide I didn’t think there would be much argument that there was in fact something wrong with it. However, I hear nothing on Tuesday, or Wednesday, or Thursday. Just how long does it take to test an iMac anyway? And while I’m ranting, the lack of communication either directly or via the AppleCare web site is very poor and not what I expect from a premium service I pay extra for.

I decided to ring them on Thursday night to see where they were up to.

The Bad News

I was horrified to be told they could find nothing wrong with it. Nothing wrong with it? It’s barely usable!

This of course meant I had to arrange another Genius Bar appointment, to do precisely what I wasn’t sure as I didn’t have any further information to give them. It’s broken, I know it’s broken but it’s not my job to tell them what’s wrong with it. All I can do is give them as much information as I can and exclude various causes by a process of elimination.

I attend the appointment to be told that it’s not Apple’s policy to repair machines unless they have personally seen the issue reported. How this relates to an intermittent fault is not explained.

I detail all I have done, yet again, but it’s like facing a cross between a brick wall and a parrot. They are not prepared to do anything without personally seeing the issue.

He takes the machine out of the box, boots it up on the Genius Bar and does precisely nothing to force any kind of failure. He looks at the screenshots I have provided and assures me that the issue is NOT hardware related but is a software issue.

Now I have a few issues with that.

1. The issue got worse over time without changing the software on the machine
2. The issue was present irrespective of what software I was running
3. The issue got worse the longer the machine was running
4. The issue got worse the hotter the machine became
5. The issue persisted after a clean install of Leopard, with no other other software installed
6. How could a software issue explain the iMac’s inability to see the drive during the Leopard reinstall?

His attitude bordered on both rude and aggressive, just repeating that it was not Apple’s policy to repair a machine unless they personally had seen the issue.

What Next?

Eventually he agreed to put the machine on test for longer, over the Easter weekend.

Redux

So here I am back to where I started on Monday, no machine and no idea when or even if the Apple Store will fix it. In fact no idea whether they will even acknowledge that there is something wrong with it.

Looks like it’s going to run and run …

Progress?

So despite promising me faithfully they would call me on Tuesday (14th April) to let me know the results of the testing conducted over the Easter weekend, they didn’t, I had to ring them.

After a long wait while the Concierge found the necessary information he informed me that that despite initially finding nothing wrong with the machine they had since discovered a fault with the graphics card. He further stated that a replacement was now on order and would be arriving in store the next day (Wednesday, 15th April). I was assured that the repair would be dealt with in a timely manner and I would have my machine back in working order within a couple of days.

After showing as “No Status Available” for 9 days the status of the issue finally changed on the AppleCare web site to “Repair in Progress”. Now what exactly does repair in progress mean? Seems simple enough but if you look at the lexicon of status messages on the AppleCare web site each status message has a very specific meaning and “Repair in Progress” means “Repair work has begun on your product.” Compare that with “On hold – Part on order” which means “We are waiting to receive a part necessary to complete your repair. We will continue with the repair once we receive the part.”

Wow, they finally came round to my way of thinking … i.e. There’s something wrong with it and they’re actually fixing it right now. Yeah, right … did I mention deeming it wise not to hold by breath?

Progess? I Don’t Think So

Wednesday, 15th April? No news, status “Repair in progress”

Thursday, 16th April? No news, status “Repair in progress”

Friday, 17th April? No news, status “Repair in progress”

Saturday, 18th April? No news, status “Repair in progress”

Sunday, 19th April? No news, status “Repair in progress”

Monday, 20th April? No news, status “Repair in progress”

Seeing a pattern here?

The repair is actually in progress, they’re working on it. Really? They’re working on it? If they are then they’ve been working on it according to the AppleCare web site for 7 days solid!!

Tuesday, 21st April? No news, status “Repair in progress”

OK, my world renowned patience is wearing somewhat thin now, well it was somewhat thin days ago so now I’m far beyond annoyed.

I put all the pertinent details in an e-mail marked for the attention of the store manager. Within minutes I had received a reply. From whom? Your guess is as good as mine. It was signed simply with a first name. No surname, no title, no position within Apple.

Since when is that acceptable in a corporate scenario? But I digress.

The reply assured me that my criticisms would be passed on to the responsible person and they would contact me shortly.

Indeed they did contact me at just after 9am on Wednesday, 22nd April, assuring me that as a matter of urgency they would be investigating the issue and contacting me again shortly. Yet again I notice it is signed off by only a first name, no title, no position. Do all companies allow such lax communications with customers? If I ring Apple they want all sorts of details from me before they will talk to me about my repair, but it seems institutional anonymity is rife within Apple’s corporate culture.

And for the sake of completeness:

Wednesday, 22nd April? No news, status “Repair in progress”

Thursday, 23rd April? No news, status “Repair in progress”

They’re still working on it? Still? For, according to the AppleCare web site, 11 days solid now!! Good grief it didn’t take that long to build the thing and ship it to me, from Shanghai, when I bought it.

BTW, Friday, 24th April? No news, status “Repair in Progress”

Finally, the news I’ve been waiting for a long time – the Liverpool One Apple Store is opening it’s doors on Saturday 26 July 2008 at 9 am.

I’ll definitely be there covering the great event live for MacBites – hope to see you there.

I love the .com button on the iPhone keyboard but often wished it was configurable – what I hadn’t discovered is that it already is!!

Clicking once on the .com does indeed add .com to the current address but holding your finger or thumb on the .com button produces a fly out menu containing extra options.

The precise options vary country by country and a full list is available from iPhone Central at Macworld.

The options shown here are those available in the UK.

How cool is that?

So how was iPhone launch day for you? I spent all day *and I do mean all day* enjoying myself in the Apple Store purchasing an iPhone … brace yourself for a long and funny story …

Mike and I spent the entire week tracking every Apple related site we could find to see if Apple would be selling the iPhone on Friday’s launch day and found nothing. The Apple Store couldn’t or wouldn’t confirm whether they would be selling it or not and referred all enquiries to the web site which was finally updated at 08:02 on Friday morning … you’ll see why that was no use later LOLOL

So we had a decision to make – stand outside the Apple Store on the off chance they would be selling them or queue at O2 and hope there were enough 16gb phones to go round. The later was very unlikely as the average available for sale per O2 store was between 3 and 6 … the only problem with that was the queue of 60 people outside fighting over them!!

So we headed off to the Trafford Centre at 06:30 more in hope than expectation … actually more in hope that expectation that we would even be able to get in the place as the car parks are locked behind impenetrable barriers until 09:30 by order of Trafford Council. As expected when we got there there was no way in to the car parks at all so we started casing the joint to find a way in. On our second circuit we found a car park with a broken barrier which meant we could sneak in. We managed to navigate from car park to car park until we got to the escalators next to Selfridges – absolutely perfect!!

The next issue was getting inside the place as it was locked tight. We knew others must already be queuing *following their antics on Twitter – very useful* so we waited until I spotted an unsuspecting Apple employee and we hot footed it after him up the escalator and very nonchalantly followed him inside after he used his staff card to get the door open )

The Trafford Centre is unusual in that it has two O2 store, two Carphone Warehouse stores and an Apple Store … in theory we couldn’t fail could we?

Once there we had the final decision to make – Apple and risk them not selling it or O2 and risk a sell out. We really shouldn’t have worried – Apple were set up perfectly, only 6 in the queue in front of us, more iPhone’s than even they could sell in a day and even better the rarer than hen’s teeth white 16gb model in stock. So it was tea, coffee, hot chocolate, bottles of iced water and hand made American cookies all round (all free courtesy of Apple – thanks guys) while we waited for the opening at 08:02 … which was why the web site update was lost on us!!

So we’re through the door at 08:02 and sat starting the purchase/contract creation process at 08:03 … oh dear, oh dear, oh dear that’s when it all ground to a halt. FIrst issue was that the O2 account creation process only worked on IE on Windows so it was VM Fusion all round while we cranked up IE amongst myriad warnings about virus protection and ad blocking requirements much to the bewilderment of hardened Apple users wondering what the hell was going on

The sign-up process was 9 sequential steps, the only respite being once you had passed the credit check at step 4 should the system crash you didn’t have to go back to step 1 but could resume at step 4. All of which was academic as it took until 11:00 for anyone in the store to actually reach the heady heights of passing the credit check stage!!

Of course passing step 4 didn’t mean a clear run to completion the system crashed time and time again, Windows gave up several times and more drinks and cookies were passed around as the phone lines to O2 HQ crashed and burnt.

The O2 store had only received 3 16gb iPhones and couldn’t activate any of them but in the end sold them to up-graders who could activate at home later. Meanwhile we were following the goings-on elsewhere via Twitter, MacRumors and a few other sites. It was the same story everywhere with O2 claiming they couldn’t have anticipated the demand … mmm that wasn’t washing as the system had crashed on Monday under the weight of pre-orders coming in at 13,000 per second. We were soon reading that in the O2 store in Milton Keynes the police had to be called in to rescue staff coming under fire from an angry mob who had queued for hours and were being asked to leave without their prized phones.

The flagship Apple Store in Regent Street London was forced to close at 15:00 as it just couldn’t cope with the numbers of folks turning up from out of stock O2 stores all over London. It was against stories like these coming in that we pressed on hoping and praying the O2 servers would have an epiphany and we’d manage to complete 2 purchases.

No kidding we all tried non-stop from entering the store at 08:02 and not a single person managed to complete the process until 13:20 when the first 4 of us (my relieved self included) signed off the process to rapturous applause form those in the queue, the Apple staff, the O2 staff on hand to help out and even shoppers outside in the Mall with no clue what was happening … unadulterated joy is obviously catching LOLOL

So finally just after 13:45 we left the store clutching 2 16gb white iPhones beaming from ear to ear.

The Apple Store staff had been fantastic as had the poor guys from O2 sent in to help with the contract related stuff. It was a good humoured “Dunkirk spirit” wait and I’d do it again in a heartbeat, it was sad to read of the problems other people had elsewhere like Milton Keynes but I guess a few hotheads who don’t know how to behave spoilt it for those who were prepared to wait. We figured we’d waited 19 months since the announcement of the iPhone and a few more hours wasn’t going to kill us *it nearly did but not quite*

Of course that wasn’t the end of our day … we then had to head to Vodafone to get a PAC number and cancel our existing service. We’ve both being out of contract for years and as Vodafone CANNOT give us an iPhone there wasn’t really much for them to say … but we’ve both been trying to get said PAC number for over a week and they are refusing point blank to give us one or let us terminate our service. The phone line people tell us to go in a store and the store people say they can’t do it and we need to write a letter to head office. Other people in the queue with Vodafone said the same thing and one poor guy even had 3 calls from Vodafone enforcement henchmen telling him the iPhone was cr*p and he should get a Nokia … each call lasted 30 minutes before he could get a word in. Mike has had three calls from Vodafone since Friday too – the why are you leaving, we’ll give you more free minutes, we’ll give you a gold bar if you stay with us type of blackmail!!

We finally managed to get someone in Customer Service *if anything was ever as misnamed* to start the termination on Friday afternoon so at the moment we’re both on temporary numbers for at least 2 weeks … and maybe more with Vodafone playing up.

It also took us an age to finish our celebratory meal, as every waiter in the Chinese restaurant insisted on coming over and admiring our phones, and an hour to get out of the Trafford Centre as people just shopping there wanted to see them too … I’d never seen anything like it!!

So an interesting day all round

Since we’d both made successful calls from the Apple Store as soon as we’d got the plastic off the phone we were unaware until much laster that other people were having huge problems getting the sim activated even days later. I hope it all fixes itself very soon for those affected.

Finally, there’s one thing you can say about us hardy Brits … we certainly know how to queue )

So the great day is almost upon us and the most important question (well it is if you leave out which store to go to … but that’s a whole different post) is a black backed iPhone or a white one?

Decisions, decisions, decisions