The Grouse: 5 Stages of iPhone Grief

Our tech reporter comes to terms with the imperfection of his favorite gadget.

By Jon Chase Posted 01.23.2008 at 3:20 am 3 Comments

Cracked iPhone Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten

Its never a good thing when you drop your baby. Its altogether tragic when its face gets roughed up as a result. Whats worse is when you cant get any help patching it up. Yep, my iPhone now has a crack across its screen. It fell all of two feet from an unzipped coat pocket and landed in what appears to be the precise configuration required for causing maximum damage: smack on the corner. A trip to the nearby Apple Store got the five stages of grief on a roll. I was already at denial, thinking they would simply give me a new one. Wrong: That ship sailed months ago.

Cue anger at the estimated $250 repair bill—and the realization that drops arent covered by warranty or insurance. Bargaining came with the idea that I would find a kind Genius Bar guy to tell a made-up story that exonerated me from any baby-dropping responsibility. Depression will inevitably come, but Ill be honest--Im back to being angry again.

I understand that a ton of protective outerwear has been created for the Apple i-line, but shouldnt a minimum amount of rough-and-tumble be tolerated by products labeled as portable? I dont expect my HDTV to bounce back from a drop of a few feet, but how low have our consumer expectations fallen at this point? My old Treo 700p, along with the half-dozen other phones Ive owned, could be dropped, bounced, jostled and still survive handily. Any portable device, much less one that costs $400, ought to be able to deal with regular wear-and-tear—which includes dropping—as a matter of course. And they should be repairable for a reasonable sum (ie, not two-thirds of the purchase price).

Heres a lark: build the Gen 2 iPhone with a shock-absorbing rubber gasket around the screen, and a rubberized, slip-proof body, to boot. Now thats something Ill be willing to accept. In the meantime, Im just living with the crack since it doesnt affect usage for now. Non-Apple screen repair kits and services abound—a new cottage industry has blossomed!—but they void the warranty, so arent good options for me. So, Im buying a hard case.

Who else has dropped their baby? Id love to hear how many of you found a sympathetic Genius, or if anyone has had luck doing repairs themselves or through a service. Tell me about it in the comments.

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3 Comments

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marty080

01/23/08 at 12:51 pm

I can sympathize with you somewhat. I dropped, or rather my sister-in-law dropped, my first iPhone three days after I bought it-face down onto brick. Needless to say, I was devastated, but I did not think for a split second that I would be able to warranty it away or have someone at the Genius bar wave their Genius wand over my poor iPhone. The screen was not shattered, it was cracked like yours and even though the cracks spread all the way across the glass, it did not disrupt the user interface. So......cool? No, not cool. My brand-new phone was utterly imperfect, unacceptable. Fortunately, I found a solution to the $250 price tag of the repair charge-I put the broken phone on eBay, walked out my front door and bought another one at the Apple store and told myself I would ask my sister-in-law to pay the difference. Imagine my surprise when my broken iPhone sold on eBay for just under $300. Bringing the price of new brand-new iPhone to around $120. Having to pay anything for simply dropping your phone will frustrate anyone, immensely, but it comes with the territory when you're always buying the latest thing. What I found out was that slightly damaged iPhones are in demand. There are all sorts of people out there still taking them apart, tweaking things, and experimenting with their innards and they're more than happy to pay you $300 for it if the touch sensitive controls still work. It's not a free solution, but it'l save you some cash. Don't want to worry about breaking your iPhone? Then either get a not-so-slim case for it or go out and get yourself something like a Nokia 6010 that can't do anything and will survive a nuclear holocaust. We all take a risk when we walk around with the latest $400 gadget in our hip pocket.

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ronycyks

01/25/08 at 11:58 am

The thing is that apple is probably the only "computer" manufacturer that does not have accedent protection on any of its products. Remember all the ipods that had problems from falling. You can buy their best "3-year warranty", but it never covers spills or falls! So you are not covered, and you cannot get it through them. I got a macbook for $1500 with the "3-year warranty", and it junked in 4 months. They said it was my fault and sorry about it. Similar to marty080 above, I put it on ebay and got $ 650 back. Went and bought a Dell 1420 with 3 year warranty with accident protection for $1000!!!. It works great but I wont go back to buying another apple.. Just not ready to throw money away at a premium product without adequate protection. Sorry about your loss...

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telcom_2

03/21/08 at 10:07 am

I bought a iPhone 3 months ago eventhough I couldn't get an insurance policy. I was a bit scared, but now I'm horrified after reading this article. The day I bought my phone I went to Wal-Mart and purchaced a plastic case and a screen cover to protect from scratches. The case was $15 and came with a "hook" to hang the phone in the case on your car dash. The screen cover, I found out later, actually goes to an iTouch and came with two in the packege for $5.(I know they sell actual screen covers for the iPhone, but for $24 and only one in the package.) The cover makes the phone less slim, but it seems to protect it very well. In the last week I have managed to drop my phone three times. fortunately no damage has been done to it. The falls have been up to almost four feet, twice on concrete and once on carpet in an office. I would like to say that the hard cover protected it, but maybe it was luck. I have almost two years to really try out this case.