iPHONE, PART DEUX

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8761845968093052505.post-10497522564146763082008-07-13T20:35:00.000-07:002008-07-15T09:43:55.007-07:00iPHONE, PART DEUXThis is a story about things going right for a change. Of course, for something to go right it first has to go wrong. I don't think I've ever bought anything technical without having some problems with it at first, and the new iPhone hasn't broken that trend. On day one the Apple store was unable to set up my phone to send emails. Receive, yes, but not send. And we copied the same outgoing server information I had on my last phone, a Palm Treo 650, also sold to me by AT&T. Now, to be fair, the Apple folk said up front that my Internet service, Roadrunner through Time Warner, was sometimes a problem. They got everything else set up perfectly including their new MobileMe (still a dumb name) which through some sort of magic I'm sure Harry Potter isn't yet old enough to learn, if I make a calendar or address book change on one of my Macs anywhere in the world it pretty much instantly makes that change on all my Macs, the iPhone included. So, before I even left the Apple store my address book and calendar appeared on the iPhone and my home computers were miles away. Although most everything worked wonderfully, I still couldn't send emails. When I got home I called Time Warner and they gave me the new codes which worked. On day two I realized my voice mail didn't work. Nobody at either the Apple Store or the AT&T store could figure out why. I called Apple Care and they had me reinstall an entirely new system, but that didn't work either. When I hit the voicemail control, it did nothing. So I called AT&T technical support and a chipper young female laughed and said I'd be surprised but they had received tons of similar calls that day. I said I wasn't surprised. One day old new tech. Of course something was going to go wrong. Ultimately, all she had to do was remotely turn off my voicemail from wherever she was and then turn it back on. And it worked. Reinstalling my entire system turned out to be unnecessary. In fairness to the Apple Care guys, if you look at the iPhone manual, which is NOT included with the phone so they emailed it to me, it is the first thing they tell you to do if something goes wrong. On Day two and a half, after my voicemail was fixed and after I had reinstalled my system, I discovered I couldn't get into the Internet where I had no problem before. No Internet meant also no email of any kind as well as no GPS. Noel and I had dinner that night with Elfquest's ever fabulous Wendy Pini and she insisted we go to the Apple Store near her. It was late and I thought I'd take care of it the next day, but it's hard to argue with Wendy, especially when all she wants to do is help. We got to the Apple Store while it was still open but the door was shut and nobody new was let in since they were finishing setting up new customer's iPhones. But I mentioned my problem to the woman at the door and she looked at the phone as if her baby had done something wrong and said "I'll get someone to help." A few seconds later someone came to the door, cast a spell on my phone and within seconds everything was working perfectly. On Day Three everything is still working perfectly and I love the phone all over again. Through it all I was a basket case, but in every instance, the folks at the Apple Store, the AT&T Store, AT&T tech support and Roadrunner Internet spent an inordinate amount of always cheerful time trying to make the problem go away. Considering the iPhone was literally one day old it is amazing so many folk actually knew what to do. And even when the stores were closed, they went an extra mile to help. We complain so often about tech support I just wanted to say that even when folk didn't have the answer, they tried to find it and worked at it until they got the right answers. This was a tech support story that went well.Marvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13825097295977137445noreply@blogger.com