Getting Rid of Iphone?

Hi,

My iphone has never worked correctly on any level.  On top of this, I find Apple staff aggressive and arrogant (i guess they feel empowered due to the company's success). They're instructed to never accept the product's at fault, which has resulted in me wasting a whole day, speaking to 3 different tech support assholes, with each telling me to jump through a different hoop. It's been reset 3 times, and they've finally agreed to give me a replacement. I'm convinced that consumer law has been breached here. My contract is with Orange, yet they say I have to deal with Apple. I never intend to buy another Apple product.

They have finally agreed to exchange the phone. Orange have said that, if I return the phone, they'll cancel my contract. However, Orange don't have any phones that interest me.

My card is currently in my old Nokia, which works fine. When I get the new Iphone, considering I have 16 months on the Iphone contract, do you think it'll be risky to sell it on Ebay, and buy an Android phone? What could go wrong?

TIA

Justin

+1 android, its open source man, which really cuts down on the politics.
I've fail to see the advantage of apple products  since the early 2000s. I agree there was a time they were a better investment to audio and video editing. but as of late, I agree that the whole attitude of the company is off. They make cute little products but when it comes to support and upgrades...forget about it! I get the impression its run by a bunch of coperate nazis that hope people beleive their products are better because they put them in a nicer case. (their build quality is excellent but what do you expect for the price?) I can't tell you how many hours i've spent sifting through the right upgrade or release just to try and get the computer and program compatible...

We went through something like that in the states last year- it seems that ATT changed the system and it screwed with the iPhones.  People would ring me and it would say the number was not in service.  It should have gone to voicemail, even if I dropped the phone in the hot tub!  Reset worked, but you never knew when the service left the building.  Outgoing calls were no problem!
The whole time Apple and ATT pointed at each other.  Finally there was a new OS upgrade and everything worked, but they would not take any responsibility for all the confusion.

That said the iPhone 4 is a marvel of a machine.  You should check with other Orange iPhone users to see if theirs FAIL also.
I plan to sell my 3G on fleabay and don't expect anything to go wrong. . .
Mike

Never had one and never will have. I am so happy that I don't have a place for that sort of gadgets in my life. I remember my wife had a similar problem with her Iphone (given by her work), we went to the Apple shop only to be subjected to a wanking of a spotty 18 year old so called technical adviser and getting nowhere. So many words no result. The problem is that the people feel inferior because they don't understand the jargon and as a result they don't ask questions. They leave the shop without getting their problems resolved and as if it is their fault. Of course I go totally opposite and after few minutes it becomes apparent that these d**kheads don't know anything about the product. It is all monkey typing.

The attitude you experienced in the shop is pretty much what I got in the store, Cemal. Mike's scenario with ATT is probably similar to the situation with Orange. The bizarre thing is that Orange don't mind admitting their network sucks... I'd change from Orange in a minute, but the trouble is, I don't trust any of the others...

It just seems bizarre to be on an 'Iphone' contract for another 16 months, whilst using another phone... One thing that is genuinely lame in the Iphone is its GPS - very slow and inaccurate. To my knowledge, that's not Orange's fault. GPS / Satnav is a big deal to me, and I'd prefer to have it in my phone.

I can't believe how much time this has wasted... I've a stack of customers' gear in the workshop...

Thanks.
J

edit - Orange claim the 3GS (my one) has the same issue the IP4 has - i.e. the signal strength indicator doesn't work... Which they say could explain why I've missed all manner of calls on the IP, with it going straight to voicemail, even when sitting next to me...

I've had an iPhone since the beginning.  I had a few problems with the first one.  Brought it back into the Apple Store, recreated the problem, they exchanged it on the spot.  No questions asked.  Three separate times.

I had no problems with 3G until I upgraded it to iOS4 and now it's a miserably slow useless paperweight.  Fortunately, I only had to use it like that for a few weeks until I got my hands on iPhone 4.  The 4 is probably the best crafted device I've ever held in my hand.  Deathgrip nonsense is BS.  It was worse with the first gen.  I get better signal in my basement (where my studio is) now than I ever did with ANY cellular device.

Maybe it's different overseas or maybe I'm just lucky, but Apple has been nothing but good to me.  Sure, I'm an apple fanboy, but for good reason.  I've been using their products since 1986 and have gotten a reasonable solution every single time I've asked them for one.  Doesn't matter if I was asking on behalf of myself OR one of my clients.  

I will never buy an open source phone again. I'm not really sure how that became the main Android selling point. My Treo was such a piece of garbage and now I read about Android phones constantly crashing and sucking down the battery in a matter of hours, etc because of sloppily coded apps.  Apps can freely go through your personal info and report them back to the coder???  No thanks.  The iPhone doesn't seem to have suffered too badly from being in a closed system.  Sure a few programmers whine that their app gets turned away.  Whatever.  I really don't care how my phone affects "developer culture".  I care how it affects me.  

Have you tried Blackberry, a wonderful piece of ergonomic technology, I'll be a nice guy to help you out of your dilemna, I swap my Blackberry for your Iphone!!!

Michael

I say contact Apple directly. I went through 5 iphones(one was my fault ) and they have been nothing but helpful to me, they had me reset it, try a couple things and then just gave me a shipping code and return it. They have never given me any problem of any sort. A source close to me that works for them was told whatever the customer wants is what they get. I say call back and speak to someone different. I hate to say it, but you dont see a bunch of companies making things for droid, iRig!

Have my iphone for two years now (3G), so far so good, don´t fill it up with stupid applications, will not install the latest OS, i like the Iphone 4, but for me it doesn´t feel like a major upgrade, providers still need to overcome the need of video calls between Iphone 4 etc.. , but still a nice piece of improvement, i hope my 3G will last a year or even two more, and will see there, my last crappy Treo last 4 and a half years, went ok until the end, no crash etc...
For the little story, my friend had the 3G for a year and had an issue (after iphone falling in the little often in the car), so the guy in Apple store, took a ear bud magnifier (i don´t know what is called in engligh) and checked two sensors, one in the jack on the upper part of the iphone, and one in the bottom, situated in the plug, this sensors that are green when evrything is ok with your Iphone, turns red when this one has felt or beeing exposed to water, so that takes out the responsability of Apple to garantee it, or even repair it, so you must deal with your provider or insurance....

I swear mine has gotten far worse since I updated the OS to 4

Hi,


  everyone I know has an iPhone. to  a man/woman, they have all become iPhone bores. "Look at this app" "my iphone can jump throuhg hoops" etc. Trouble is they seem to be really shit at the one thing they really ought to be good at - ie being a PHONE. I can never hear what anyone is saying to me on an iPhone. I have no trouble with any other phones or landlines. Just iPhones. - and it is amazing to be able to do all those things, but what I need is a phone and a computer, not a pale imitation of each.


    I'd rather have two plastic cups and a piece of string!



    ANdyP

i've been a mac user since the IIe... But then also linux and windows too.

I have a macbook pro that is almost 4 years old. the display went out a couple weeks ago and they replaced it for free (no apple-care here!). I was really surprised. I've also had a 1st gen iphone for about 3.5 years. Great although it is getting slow now. Need the iphone4 and an ipad! Before the iphone I had several smart phones. They were all terrible.

Cheers,
j

Yep.  Pascal programming on a IIc back in '82- look how far things have come!
The 3G was my first real cellular mobile telephone- I held out for so long it became counter-productive not to have one.
The temptation to be an iPhone doosh is great, but avoidable.
MIke
PS: Have I crossed the line with a Francis Ley harpsichord ringtone for my missus??

Last year I ended up spending the money for a Motorola Tundra ruggedized / mil-spec phone.  It'll do some level of data/Internet, but I haven't ponied up the money to make that happen.  I just love banging it against stuff and throwing it on the ground to show how tough it is.

Might buy an iPod Touch if the damn Palm thing will ever die.  Or maybe something in the Android platform...

Well, I've never owned a mobile phone...in fact I have three phones at home, 2 are desktop dial phones from the 60s and another phone in the office from 1930
I never have any trouble with them....they ring loud and the signal is always solid ;D

Well, I guess, I am much more "modern" than you--I actually have a cell phone... an old T mobile from 2003. Never ever used my (free) upgrades, as I am perfectly happy with that one. I can hear well... much better than most of phones I tried, and as a side note, it services its purpose perfectly fine--I can communicate with other people when I need. It is little bulky, but much more comfortable to hold, and it does not slip out of my hands as more miniature ones tend to do. It does not have a camera, but OTOH, anyway, the ones I tried, the pic quality is so crappy that I'd never use it, anyway, esp. considering I have Nikon D90. A few times I tried Internet on friends' iphones and found it particularly pathetic--small screen, slow, impossible to navigate comfortably, hard to type, etc. I'd rather take a rest from Internet than go into those inconveniences... or go pay in Internet cafe, if I am out of town.

So what is all that hype about? Isn't the main purpose of the phone is just to be able to call and talk?

Best, M

Freddy G said:

Well, I've never owned a mobile phone...in fact I have three phones at home, 2 are desktop dial phones from the 60s and another phone in the office from 1930
I never have any trouble with them....they ring loud and the signal is always solid ;D

Click to expand...

Well' I have got ..... wait for it .......

A cheapo Samsung mobile. It's pay as you go. It has everything I need,
not what I am told I need. I can ring people, I can text people.

Simple

I "swore" that I would not get an iphone .... 'cos EVERYBODY and their dog has one !!

My Blackberry Bold 9000 was getting "sick" and was all but useless "on-line" so I got a 3GS about
three weeks ago.

I use it as a phone, I have a ipod touch and also an ipad since a few days, so no need to
put any apps on that.

Works great, emails come through and I can hear everyone that calls .... Vodaphone UK is
the best UK service, never drops out and I'm very happy with it.

MM

thermionic said:

It just seems bizarre to be on an 'Iphone' contract for another 16 months, whilst using another phone... One thing that is genuinely lame in the Iphone is its GPS - very slow and inaccurate. To my knowledge, that's not Orange's fault. GPS / Satnav is a big deal to me, and I'd prefer to have it in my phone.

Click to expand...

Try buying an actual navigation application, instead of using the Maps app. It's MUCH faster. It's not the GPS hardware in the phone, it's how often the display updates, which I presume is because the maps have to be fetched from the Internet rather than from internal flash or whatever. A friend sprung for the TomTom app for his iPhone 3G and it works as well as a standalone unit.

Me, I prefer just having a standalone TomTom attached to the dashboard. The standalone unit has all of the maps stored in a large flash card, and I guess if I had the TomTom app on the phone the maps would eat up a significant amount of memory.

(Downside: on the 3G, since it does not support multitasking, you can't do anything else, even answer the phone. on a 3GS and later with iOS4, you can navigate and yak on the phone at the same time.)

edit - Orange claim the 3GS (my one) has the same issue the IP4 has - i.e. the signal strength indicator doesn't work... Which they say could explain why I've missed all manner of calls on the IP, with it going straight to voicemail, even when sitting next to me...

Click to expand...

I have had that same problem on my 3G. The phone won't ring and then half an hour later I'll get a voice-mail indication. Of course, I had this problem with AT+T service on my previous Nokia non-smart phone. And AT+T service has never extended to my kitchen.

-a

King Ludd is alive and well.