Hi Joe, I can only speak about my experience. I am in Canada and had both my iPhone 4 and my iPhone 4S replaced with a new phone. My iPhone 4 started, after about 8 or 9 months to have a very flaky home key. Often the Home Key would not work at all to get you out of an app or to bring up the app switcher. Then again it worked fine. I explained this to one of their Geneiouses at one of the Apple Stores in Vancouver, incidently it is a 12-hour drive from where I live to there, but I am usually in Vancouver every 3 or 4 months on business) and of course when I tried to show him the problem it was working just fine. Anyhow, he said they did have that issue with some of the phones and it was no problem at all, if I didn't have anything on the phone that I hadn't backed up he could just give me a new one right then and there. Since I had all my stuff backed up on iTunes at home I told him to go for it and half an hour later I walked out of the store with a brand new iPhone 4. This was only 3 months before the 4S came out so it was a bonus because when I sold my 4 to get the 4S I could confidently say it was only 3 months old. Oh, I should mention that I bought both my iPhone 4 32 Gig and now my 4S 64 Gig directly from Apple at full price unlocked and without contract.
When I received my 4S I had very poor battery performance and on many calls the other person heard a horrible echo. I called tech support, did a complete restore without using a backup and the problems remained, so since I was in Vancouver again 3 weeks later I went back to the same Apple Store, explained the problem and what I had done with Apple support over the phone and the geneous (a different one from before) once again said that instead of fooling around with it to try and find out if it could be fixed he would just give me a new phone. By this time I had done an iCloud backup so after he set up my new phone I entered my Apple Id and everything came back on my phone, then I went into email and put in my Office 365 exchange credentials for my business email and my Windows Live Id for my otmail and all my email and contacts were back, too. I am not sure what issue you are having, but I can only say the very best about the support I have received from that particular Apple Store. Maybe it makes a difference to them if somebody has bought an iPhone at full price from Apple directly, I guess the large carriers p[robably don't pay them $850 for an iPhone 4S 64 Gig so it may very well be that you get the VIP treatment if you flip the bill for an unlocked full-price phone. If that is the case, then that lone makes it almost worthwhile to do that and of course you aren't obligated to a provider, but I do of core know as well that this is not an option for that many people. I am self-employeed and while my retail business doesn't swim in money, I can write off a new phone as a business expense so why not. Regards, Sieghard -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "VIPhone" Google Group. To search the VIPhone public archive, visit http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/viphone?hl=en.
