iPhone return without a genious bar...

My guess is if you buy at the Apple store and you want it returned, you need to go the Apple store and vice versa. Order it online and if you have problems, call customer support and I'm sure you can send it to them. I did this with my broken iPod several times.

 

I feel ya man...The closest Apple Store to me (Im in Lansing, MI) is like 70 miles away. That's why, whenever I have a problem with my iPhone or iPod's, I just call up Apple and use Applecare (1 year warranty comes with iPhone) to have them send me out an empty box and I send it to them like that. The turnaround tiem is quick too. 3 days max in my experience.

 

There is an Apple store in Grand Rapids which is about an hour from Lansing.

 

You can not take it to the AT&T store to exchange it. Heck, my local store wouldn't return mine within the 14 day period, when I had a technical issue and wanted them to help me. My nearest apple store was about the same distance, about 2-2.5 hours.

How do you figure you only have 90 days of warranty? As far as I know, you have a 1 year warranty. You don't have to have apple care to return the phone to apple within the 1 year warranty period. I would suggest buying apple care, but you don't have to unless you want a longer warranty. Again, I would highly suggest it, because AC is very good.