I took advantage of my the iPhone 6s battery replacement program yesterday. I'm not sure I needed to do so, however at that price it made sense to me.
I made a Genius Bar appointment, was about five minutes late, and both staffers I talked to were very gracious. It was clear everyone was rushed with the volume of business they do, however I was pleased with the attention and thoroughness demonstrated. (I kind of wanted to say I know this stuff based on all my accumulated apple knowledge.) The last thing they said: "we may not be able to successfully replace things. We're responsible for the hardware not for any data loss." I did back up my old phone to a Mac and iCloud the night before. I handed over my iPhone and had an excuse to spend 90 minutes in the store.
Upon return I was greeted with the bad news: They broke my phone repairing it. The camera didn't survive the operation. They handed me a shiny 6s (couldn't tell if it was new or refurbed, likely refurb) and sat me down at a table to restore it. To my horror I couldn't find any of my back-ups. I especially started to have a mild freak out as my AppleWatch move streak is over 800 days, and didn't want to lose that information. (it may be retrievable in the cloud, but you don't always think clearly in those situations. Nevertheless, this was my internal discussion. I said nothing to an Apple employee about my anxiety.)
I knew I had an iTunes back-up, so I left and headed home.
The root cause of my issue is the iOS on the replacement phone was not upgraded to current, so my "current" iOS back-up could not be read. At the Apple Store I had done a partial set-up, and that did cause some issues with the iTunes restore. Erasing my phones (also referred to as Restore in iTunes allowed things to move forward. A sign on to the Apple ID (not as easy as you might think if you have a few of them!) caused the watch to re-pair.). My streak was saved.
This is a case of everything being obvious once you've done it. I won't share how long it took me to get to resolution over my personal embarrassment. My guidance would be :
Some random thoughts about the 90 minutes in the Apple Store:
I made a Genius Bar appointment, was about five minutes late, and both staffers I talked to were very gracious. It was clear everyone was rushed with the volume of business they do, however I was pleased with the attention and thoroughness demonstrated. (I kind of wanted to say I know this stuff based on all my accumulated apple knowledge.) The last thing they said: "we may not be able to successfully replace things. We're responsible for the hardware not for any data loss." I did back up my old phone to a Mac and iCloud the night before. I handed over my iPhone and had an excuse to spend 90 minutes in the store.
Upon return I was greeted with the bad news: They broke my phone repairing it. The camera didn't survive the operation. They handed me a shiny 6s (couldn't tell if it was new or refurbed, likely refurb) and sat me down at a table to restore it. To my horror I couldn't find any of my back-ups. I especially started to have a mild freak out as my AppleWatch move streak is over 800 days, and didn't want to lose that information. (it may be retrievable in the cloud, but you don't always think clearly in those situations. Nevertheless, this was my internal discussion. I said nothing to an Apple employee about my anxiety.)
I knew I had an iTunes back-up, so I left and headed home.
The root cause of my issue is the iOS on the replacement phone was not upgraded to current, so my "current" iOS back-up could not be read. At the Apple Store I had done a partial set-up, and that did cause some issues with the iTunes restore. Erasing my phones (also referred to as Restore in iTunes allowed things to move forward. A sign on to the Apple ID (not as easy as you might think if you have a few of them!) caused the watch to re-pair.). My streak was saved.
This is a case of everything being obvious once you've done it. I won't share how long it took me to get to resolution over my personal embarrassment. My guidance would be :
- make an iTunes and iCloud backup for your phone before bringing it in for any service. You may want to consider multiple ones if your have say a week before your service appointment. You can never have enough.
- Make a not of your iOS you're using, especially if you don't run the latest version. I was latest which made thing easier.
- if you're having issues restoring your phone. Remain calm. Apple is really good at this stuff! Make sure you're running the same iOS as your backup.
- You may need to upgrade your iPhone iOS. If you do, immediately reset the phone so other things you did during your "first go" are erased. Resetting the phone keeps the iOS you upgraded it to.
- just follow the instructions from there.
Some random thoughts about the 90 minutes in the Apple Store:
- crazy volume of people and employees. I remember all the experts laughing at Apple when they announced they were doing retail stores. It's hard to imagine how these aren't a major boost to the Apple Brand.
- Was crazy tempted to get a space grey Magic Mouse. The $20 premium rubbed me the wrong way (that's just me. Buy it if you like it. It's way cool.) I'd probably spend the premium if it were a RED one. I have three mice on my desk, and I'd welcome a more elegant solution to the duct tape identification them. Did I mention it was cool above, too?
- Spent an hour or so on the iMac Pro. Dare I say it's almost too fast. I found apps and things were happening just by mouse location. Perhaps there's a setting impacting this under accessibility. There's no question for me the speed is obvious.
- Disappointing they don't have pro apps on the iMac Pros in the store. I made an iMovie with their clips and photos. I would have liked to have seen the performance with Final Cut.
- Wash your hands or use Purel when leaving. You don't have to be a germ-phobe to understand why.
