I recently just upgraded from an iPhone 8 to the new iPhone 12. It’s a beautiful phone and a good size (although I may switch to the mini depending on how this replacement quality fares). However, upon first boot of the phone I noticed that compared to the 8 it is noticeably warmer (read yellow) with True Tone off, night mode off, and all other settings equal. Today, at a BestBuy I compared my 12 to their floor model and confirmed that yellow tint is not normal and that the screen is noticeably dimmer at maximum brightness.
An hour or two ago I called Apple hoping to quickly and easily get this sorted out. After being transferred to a senior support person I was given the options of sending it in for repair or simply having it replaced since I’m within the 14 day return period (the nearest Apple store to me is 2-3 hours). I chose the latter since it’s faster and I’d rather just do it this way.
But, my God, the sound quality, volume, and the way the support people talked was lacking Apple-ness. After upping the volume to hear their customer support people talk (mumble and say things like ”what was your problem again? . . . Oh, yeah, yeah I remember now.“ I was blasted with hold music until I could be connected to their sales department. I was offered 4 day “express” shipping for an $8 up-charge, which I declined because I shouldn’t be paying them extra to rectify their screw up as fast as possible. They said they’d email me within 5-10 minutes which I never got and now I’m just waiting to mail my phone back and then have another one shipped to me when they receive mine. Oh, and I just tried to do the online chat to clear up the lack of email thing and I keep getting an error on my iPad.
For a company as big and as successful as Apple I would have hoped they wouldn’t send out phones with a pretty obvious quality defect, and when they do mess up I would have hoped that they would offer to rectify it by sending me one express and then letting me send back the current one (instead of the other way around via not express), and hiring customer support people who are simply more professional.
All in all it’s been a bit of a sour experience and I’m sure I’m that vocal minority but I’ve walked away (clicked, hung up) somewhat disappointed with them for the first time in a long time.
An hour or two ago I called Apple hoping to quickly and easily get this sorted out. After being transferred to a senior support person I was given the options of sending it in for repair or simply having it replaced since I’m within the 14 day return period (the nearest Apple store to me is 2-3 hours). I chose the latter since it’s faster and I’d rather just do it this way.
But, my God, the sound quality, volume, and the way the support people talked was lacking Apple-ness. After upping the volume to hear their customer support people talk (mumble and say things like ”what was your problem again? . . . Oh, yeah, yeah I remember now.“ I was blasted with hold music until I could be connected to their sales department. I was offered 4 day “express” shipping for an $8 up-charge, which I declined because I shouldn’t be paying them extra to rectify their screw up as fast as possible. They said they’d email me within 5-10 minutes which I never got and now I’m just waiting to mail my phone back and then have another one shipped to me when they receive mine. Oh, and I just tried to do the online chat to clear up the lack of email thing and I keep getting an error on my iPad.
For a company as big and as successful as Apple I would have hoped they wouldn’t send out phones with a pretty obvious quality defect, and when they do mess up I would have hoped that they would offer to rectify it by sending me one express and then letting me send back the current one (instead of the other way around via not express), and hiring customer support people who are simply more professional.
All in all it’s been a bit of a sour experience and I’m sure I’m that vocal minority but I’ve walked away (clicked, hung up) somewhat disappointed with them for the first time in a long time.
