Moral Dilemma

I'd say go with your gut, which I think is telling you to either disclose the problem or recycle it.

You may lose out on some $$, but at least you'll gain some karma points.

Maybe you should wait until 4.2 comes out and update. Maybe that might fix it

If not, recycle it. If you tried to sell it, and be up front as possible, I think it'll be more a headache for you then anything else. And whoever buys it might not be totally aware of the issue and blame you, request refund, file dispute, blah blah blah.

yea i would wait for 4.2 as well and see if that may fix the issue.

there's no moral dilemma. treat others and you would want to be treated in a transaction. If you were the buyer, you would want that disclosed. And if it wasn't - I think we all know that you would come on here and post about the incident.

well its better if you be a bit practical about it. if you want to sell it on ebay, jus go ahead and sell it. it isnt much of a problem as the ios 4.2 is on its way cuz its definately gonna get fixed with the update. i personally wouldnt blame a seller for a software glitch. As long as the hardware is in a good condition, you're not cheating.

Yes, I would wait until 4.2 comes out. I do not suffer from this crashing bug you speak of. In fact, I've never even heard of it until now.
But install 4.2 and see if it persists. If it does, do yourself and your buyer honor and be honest.

In fact, you shouldn't be asking if you should be honest at all. It should be immediate and unquestionable.

shriksworld said:

i personally wouldnt blame a seller for a software glitch. As long as the hardware is in a good condition, you're not cheating.

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I would just about bet against that. I would bet that you or at least MOST would complain if they got a phone and it didn't work the way it was supposed to.

Agree with most of the posters. Disclose it if you go the eBay route. Not just because it is the morally correct thing to do, but also because you don't want the buyer to have any reason to dispute the transaction. eBay and PayPal always side with the buyer. Not worth the risk.

I would let the buyer know, but also that it will most likely be fixed in 4.2, or wait for 4.2 update and then sell.

tejaykay said:

Thanks for all the feedback guys.

I think I'll be waiting for 4.2 anyway. If it doesn't fix it, I believe eBay will offer the higher selling price with the disclosed bug, rather than the recycle programmes - where I'll get max £200.




It's a massive problem. Since iOS 4 was released I haven't been able to have a phone call longer than 5 mins. I also can't use my iPhone for any other tasks as it'll generally crash after 15mins of constant use. There have already been 2 iOS point upgrades, neither of which have addresses the problem, otherwise I would happily wait for the next iPhone in July.

There are thousands of 3GS owners in the same boat, but we make up less than 0.01% of the iPhone population. I very much doubt Apple will ever fix this. Very disappointing.

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You could try to get ahold of the 4.2.1 GM release and install that. I don't think your UDID has to be registered to install GM releases (correct me if I'm wrong, but this was the case for 3.0). Then you can tell right away if it'll be fixed.

Wow, this is a ridiculous bug! Worse, perhaps, than 3.1's "coma" bug!

I would say that if you resell the phone, you have a moral obligation to disclose everything that is wrong with it, including this.

At the same time, I would ALSO say that APPLE has a moral obligation to FIX your phone, given that their software update is what crippled it, NOT TO MENTION THEIR STUPID POLICY THAT PREVENTS YOU FROM DOWNGRADING TO AN EARLIER VERSION THAT WOULD WORK.

From reading the thread you linked to, it does sound like people who are being persistent in dealing with Apple are having some measure of success in getting their phones replaced. If I were in your position, I would continue to ride Apple hard until they replaced my phone. I would also be livid (no, make that PISSED) if I myself were a victim of an Apple software update that made my previously-perfectly-working-but-out-of-warranty phone unusable.

It would be one thing if some small percentage of 3GS phones had this problem when upgrading to iOS 4.x. It is a completely different thing given that software upgrades on iPhones are IRREVERSIBLE (unless you know what you are doing ahead of time and plan for it, and even then it is still impossible to downgrade baseband code) and that this is enforced by Apple in both hardware and software, which is (I think) a despicable practice and policy on Apple's part.

You break my phone with an "upgrade," and then you prevent me from making it usable by not allowing me to downgrade back to the way things were before? Yeah, then I guess you better be prepared to replace my phone, warranty status be damned.

Sorry for the rant, but reading this kind of stuff makes me angry.

-- Nathan

I'd actually just wait till the next iPhone gets released. The 4's run is close to half over now.