My iPhone 17 Pro cellular modem experienced an infant mortality failure. It took about 5h of my time visiting Apple and Verizon spread across three days to resolve with a $429 circuit board replacement. Luckily, there's a 1y warranty that covered the expense. Verizon refused to credit the $35 "upgrade fee" for the inconvenience, but instead provided a $15 credit for the service disruption.
I started using the 17 Pro on Mon 22 Sep and it worked great. Starting on Thu 30 Oct, the phone started cycling between SoS, Sat, 5G, every few minutes in all but the strongest SNR conditions. This left me generally unable to send or receive texts, initiate or receive calls, or use cellular data. On Sat 1 Nov, the iPhone recognized "Cellular Issue" under "Cellular" settings prompting to run diagnostics. I made an appointment online the first available day, Tues 4 Nov. I brought it to an Apple Store the same day, Sat, ahead of my online appointment; after an hour wait for a same-day walk-in, they started diagnosing it.
There was a very strong Verizon signal in the store, so the issue wouldn't present for them. The Apple cellular RF diagnostics were unable to run. They tried using two different test sets and several different iPhone trays, but the RF cellular diagnostic would not run. They tried to restore the phone from iCloud backup. I left the store and the problem immediately recurred in the parking lot. I returned and they tried a factory reset without a backup restore. The problem immediately recurred in the parking lot and the store closed. I'm now left with a phone without cellular service.
I returned for my Apple appointment on Tuesday 4 Nov. They took the phone overnight and replaced the circuit board. The Apple technician warned the phone would no longer know who it was, an annoying character of the eSim. They are able to restore eSim for AT&T in store, but not for my carrier, Verizon. I picked it up Wed 5 Nov afternoon. As they advised, the phone didn't know who it was, so I had to go to the Verizon store next. I spent another 30 minutes with them getting my cellular service restored on the repaired phone.
The Verizon store person was helpful. I asked about compensation for this inconvenience, pointing at their $35 "upgrade" fee. (I bought the phone from Apple using the 0% loan - this fee is silly to begin with). He said he couldn't help with the credit, but he wrote notes on my account and directed me to call customer service and they would credit the fee. I called customer service. The Verizon rep read the note back to me from their store employee recommending issuing me the upgrade fee credit. Customer service refused to credit the fee. I remained polite, and told the Verizon Rep their service was not available to me for a week. He gave me a credit for the service dates in question.
I have just over a day with the repaired phone, and the Verizon cell service is back to working with the replaced circuit board. I imagine this was just a rare infant mortality problem which is why we get the 1y warranty. Lucky me. Unfortunately, the 1y warranty doesn't reset with the repair.
Has anyone else had a failure with the 17 Pro's Qualcomm Snapdragon X80 modem?
I started using the 17 Pro on Mon 22 Sep and it worked great. Starting on Thu 30 Oct, the phone started cycling between SoS, Sat, 5G, every few minutes in all but the strongest SNR conditions. This left me generally unable to send or receive texts, initiate or receive calls, or use cellular data. On Sat 1 Nov, the iPhone recognized "Cellular Issue" under "Cellular" settings prompting to run diagnostics. I made an appointment online the first available day, Tues 4 Nov. I brought it to an Apple Store the same day, Sat, ahead of my online appointment; after an hour wait for a same-day walk-in, they started diagnosing it.
There was a very strong Verizon signal in the store, so the issue wouldn't present for them. The Apple cellular RF diagnostics were unable to run. They tried using two different test sets and several different iPhone trays, but the RF cellular diagnostic would not run. They tried to restore the phone from iCloud backup. I left the store and the problem immediately recurred in the parking lot. I returned and they tried a factory reset without a backup restore. The problem immediately recurred in the parking lot and the store closed. I'm now left with a phone without cellular service.
I returned for my Apple appointment on Tuesday 4 Nov. They took the phone overnight and replaced the circuit board. The Apple technician warned the phone would no longer know who it was, an annoying character of the eSim. They are able to restore eSim for AT&T in store, but not for my carrier, Verizon. I picked it up Wed 5 Nov afternoon. As they advised, the phone didn't know who it was, so I had to go to the Verizon store next. I spent another 30 minutes with them getting my cellular service restored on the repaired phone.
The Verizon store person was helpful. I asked about compensation for this inconvenience, pointing at their $35 "upgrade" fee. (I bought the phone from Apple using the 0% loan - this fee is silly to begin with). He said he couldn't help with the credit, but he wrote notes on my account and directed me to call customer service and they would credit the fee. I called customer service. The Verizon rep read the note back to me from their store employee recommending issuing me the upgrade fee credit. Customer service refused to credit the fee. I remained polite, and told the Verizon Rep their service was not available to me for a week. He gave me a credit for the service dates in question.
I have just over a day with the repaired phone, and the Verizon cell service is back to working with the replaced circuit board. I imagine this was just a rare infant mortality problem which is why we get the 1y warranty. Lucky me. Unfortunately, the 1y warranty doesn't reset with the repair.
Has anyone else had a failure with the 17 Pro's Qualcomm Snapdragon X80 modem?
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