Hi all,
It seems like my run with my iPhone 5 has been a bit of a nightmare. I received this phone as a gift from mum, whom she asked my cousin to purchase it from the Apple store in America, for finishing and graduating with my PhD.
So the phone was purchased on the 16th December and given to me on the 21st December in Taiwan. On the 22nd of December, on a trip to Hong Kong, I realised the Home button was become non responsive and required numerous presses to get back to the home screen. On the 25th I got frustrated with the issue becoming prevalent, but fortuitously I passed an Apple store in Causeway, HK, and went in.
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My Cantonese speech is poor and all the staff looked Asian, so I thought 'crap!' Anyhow I bumped into a Caucasian, Manager (David Hall), and described my issue. He then took my phone and played around with it and came to the same conclusion and was really happy to help me, remember I had not made an appointment on the busiest day of the year! He directed me to one of his staff who tried to replace my phone (as it was under 2 weeks old). This swap however was unsuccessful as my phone was American (CDMA) and all of the phones in HK were GSM, due to Apple policy direct replacement was not possible. Also I learnt that Apple doesn't really have an international warranty per se like most mobile phone companies. GREAT! However the Genius, William, suggested that he would replace the Home button and that it would take 10-20 minutes. I thought 'Win!'. They took my phone and came back with a new button and the phone worked perfectly. They also told me that my phone was missing two screws, and I quickly quipped I didn't open it.
So overall, this store is one of the best I've been too. I've made it a habit to visit as many Apple stores around the world, for giggles, and found this store very professional and made me feel that the extra money was worth the service.
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Anyhow a week after my replacement my home button started to play up and now its pretty dead, requires 20 presses before being registered. I have resorted to using the assistive touch button. I will be flying back home to Australia in the coming few days. I will then see if I can another home button replaced, but I doubt they'll have the same efficiency as HK.
But what did I learn during the course this saga:
- Apple warranty is not really 'international' so I expect a ShXt fight in Australia. The peeps in HK were nice enough to replace my button despite this technicality.
-If this phone is reliant on the button for everyday function, shouldn't it be resilient to a million presses? Or is it there as a 'token'?
-Boy has Apple's QC gone down...
