My New Phone

Only suckers switch to Samsung.

I've never ever been to the Genius Bar before. Because I find I can fix most problems myself. The web is a cornucopia of information, if you can't find the answer in the Apple Support Communities (https://discussions.apple.com/welcome), you don't have a problem. But finally at my limit with my Mac Pro, I made the journey. And when I went to pick up my machine today, more about that later, I decided to...

Tell them about my phone.

The truth is Americans are abusers. Give 'em an inch and they'll take more than a mile. The best example is Costco, that bastion of consumer-friendliness. They had a generous return policy they had to eliminate, because people were buying new iPods and then returning them a year later, when the new model came out, even though there was nothing wrong with the first. So unless something craps out completely, unless it's a slam-dunk case, I don't want to deal with customer service. Because I feel I've got to justify myself, since everybody who's preceded me is a lying, cheating, scumbag.

Like that husband of an old friend who no longer liked his car so he drove it south of the border and reported it stolen.

Yup, I'm too embarrassed to speak up for myself even if I do have a problem. But today I did. You see the battery on my iPhone no longer had the juice. Oh, the device worked, I never would have scheduled a special trip, but while I was there...it'd crap out at 20% and the journey down to that number was oh-so-fast.

So Hunter hooked it up to a program, and voila! Turned out it was failing. Not gone, but borderline. So he gave me a new phone.

But it gets even better than that, the random freezing problem I was having, only in e-mail, was gone too. So this is a win-win.

But I'm still gonna get a new phone in the fall. Because this one will be paid for. And it's not about the device anyway, but the data, and the utility. As in you need something that works, but what's on it and what it can access is more important than how it looks.

So, if you're getting something spiffy, ask yourself, what are you gonna do when it breaks? Call Korea?

Or if you cheap out, buy one of those knock-off Android devices, same deal.

And you know how it works, it's never their fault. Even Apple pooh-poohs third party software. You've got to convince somebody that they're responsible, and if you think that's easy, you're David Boies, and even he's got a spotty track record.

Sure, I bought insurance, known as Applecare. Might be expensive, but I want no questions asked. It's less about the money than the service. I want to be covered, the same way I pay house insurance, it's about what if? What if I'm stuck with a lame device that's my lifeline? And that's what smartphones are, a lifeline. If you don't feel this way, believe me, in a couple of years you will.

And the truth is we've got no time. Which is why I didn't schedule a special trip to begin with. Which is why not only was it great to instantly get a new phone, but to have all its data instantly synch from the cloud. That's what you get when you've got one stop shopping, when you buy everything from one place, i.e. Apple, it all works seamlessly.

So if all you want to do is make calls and text, you're fine with another device, maybe. But what if you get a bum app? What if you've lost functionality? Who you gonna call, Ghostbusters?

What we're all looking for is a safety net, even the 1%. Although theirs is all about health, that's the one thing money can't buy. But the rest of us, we don't want to be waylaid by a problem, we don't want the wind taken out of our sails, we want to believe someone will be there in our moment of crisis.

And the last resort should be and is the government. Which is why the uninsured go to emergency rooms and get service, because as a society we don't want our citizens to be lame and maimed.

But the government doesn't cover everything. It'll give you some food, some health care, but it won't give you a phone and service. For this you've got to pay.

So who are you going to pay?

Pay Apple. Because you're paying anyway, it's built into your contract. The phones are not free, even though you think they are.

Because someday you're gonna want answers. And the Genius Bar is just a hop, skip and a jump away.

And you'll be glad.

P.S. As for my Mac Pro, they tested it and said it was fine, which means...it won't be, but I'm gonna find out. (They tested the hardware and the software, found no problem. Then they said a hard drive failed, then they tested all four and said they were fine. Then they installed a new OS on one and...I've got absolutely no faith the problem is gone. I'm gonna buy a new machine, hopefully this one will limp along and get me through.)


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