[Nodnarb]

So for about 3-4 days, my phone only worked when on speaker phone, as it seemed to think the headphones were perpetually plugged in. I did the little trick of plugging/unplugging the headphones a million times (this worked before) but nothing happened. I reset, restored, etc.

Finally I went online and requested iPhone service. I had 2 options, 1 was to take it to the Apple store and 2 was for Apple to send me a box. With the recent 2 crappy experiences at my local genius bar, I decided to give apple corporate a shot.

The empty box came the next day -I put the iPhone back in the box and gave it to fed ex the next morning. I put my sim card in a $30 phone for the meantime. The next day I get an email saying Apple has gotten my phone - later that same day, another email came saying that the have diagnosed the problem and replaced it, and it has just shipped. The phone arrived this morning.

First off, this was the simplest customer service I have ever had. So simple, so quick, and obviously a great resolution! I've had the phone since launch day without a case, so obviously there were a few (ok, a lot) of scratches/chips on the back. This new phone looks so great!

I know it might be a refurbished model, but who cares, it looks great, and works good as new.

The whole thing is so simple, I plugged the phone back into iTunes and it restores from the last backup of my sync. Couldn't have been easier.

[MacinTommy]

Thats great to hear. This may sound weird but as a sentimental thing I want to keep my original iPhone forever since I bought it on the first day and it's the first first-gen Apple product I've ever owned. Is that weird?

[Nodnarb]

No, I know what you mean. I thought I'd be the same way, but after about 4 days of only able to talk on speaker phone (not cool when you're walking around campus and can't hear for crap!) and getting annoyed with the phone, I was actually pretty stoked to get a new one. Plus it looks so fresh with no nicks on the back!

How is your phone holding up on the back?

[MacinTommy]

Originally Posted by Nodnarb 

How is your phone holding up on the back?

Minimal scratching... I've had one major drop and it hardly did anything. I've pretty much babied my phone so its in really good condition.

[mduell]

Why wouldn't they just swap it on-site at the Apple Store?

[vln2]

I bought my iPhone as the 6th person in the store on day one.
Couple weeks ago I took it to Apple store and it was replaced. I was happy since 4 months earlier when I sent it to Apple for service it came back with top glass corners misalinged and side metal parts sticking out.
New one is perfect and I don't care about its past. It has late serial number, no scratches on top and back.

[Nodnarb]

Originally Posted by mduell 

Why wouldn't they just swap it on-site at the Apple Store?

Cause the past 2 times at the Apple store they've been unbelievably slow. My moms macbook was under AppleCare, and the harddrive crapped out. I took it in there and they agreed it needed to be replaced, and then gave me a wait time of 3-5 days. I can do the damn thing myself in 20 minutes! They said they were waiting on parts (parts... a standard hard drive that comes in all macbooks... really that hard to get??).
And then another similar situation happened with my macbook just after that, my mac was kernel panicking all over the place and they took forevvvvvver to give it back to me. Same when I've had to get the wristpad fixed on the bottom right, took them a week.

I decided Apple corporate could do a better job (and they did!). I can't say 100% certain, but I'd assume the geniuses would have wanted to examine the iPhone more and tried to repair it rather than just authorize a complete new one on site. From the guys I've seen there, I have a hard time believing that would happen.