Anand Reviews the Apple iPhone 3G

Issues with the first iPhone (and Apple’s great support)

My mom’s iPhone was the first of anyone’s I knew that needed replacing. She dropped it on concrete and while the phone still worked, it was dented up pretty bad. Her phone was damaged early enough that Apple didn’t have tons of replacement iPhones on hand, so it took around 5 days for a new phone to get mailed to her. Surprisingly enough, Apple actually replaced the phone free-of-charge, but she was without her phone for about a week.

Despite a mostly positive experience with my first iPhone, after a few months I needed to have it replaced. A very small bubble developed in the screen and given that it was a defect, Apple replaced my phone on the spot. I didn’t have to wait at all or even provide proof of purchase, I walked in with a broken phone and I left with a working one.

That wasn’t the last replacement iPhone I had, here’s the list of issues I’ve had with the original iPhone:

- Tiny bubble appeared in the screen (Apple replaced the phone, free of charge)
- Vibrating buzzer worked intermittently (Apple replaced the phone, free of charge)
- Poor reception (Apple replaced the phone, free of charge)
- More tiny bubbles appeared in the screen (this just happened, need to go to Apple)

The iPhone hasn’t been problem-free, many of the replacement phones actually had more problems than my original one - but each time, Apple took care of it with less pain than any other company I’ve ever seen at work. Customer satisfaction was top priority and I never left without my problem resolved. If I made my Genius Bar appointment ahead of time, within 20 minutes I was walking out of the store with a new/refurbished iPhone.

I expect that many of these recurring problems will be addressed by the hardware changes to the iPhone 3G, as each time Apple has to refurbish a phone it eats into those lovely iPhone profits. But even if the iPhone 3G is just as prone to hardware issues as the previous one, it seems like Apple will take care of you.

This is actually a benefit of forcing all warranty issues to go through Apple, you have a hardware manufacturer that will take care of you directly, whereas dealing with AT&T to fix your phone problems has always been far more of a pain in my previous experiences. Apple’s primary concern is to make sure you’re happy with its product, so bring in a broken phone and leave happy, whereas AT&T is a little more concerned with making sure you pay your monthly bill and less interested in fixing other companies’ problems.