I’m not on duty. I haven’t had a cell phone since last night. When I exported the data from my iPhone 13 Pro Max to my new iPhone 14 Pro Max.
But it gets worse.
No, it can’t get any worse. In a world where you only have one phone line, and my mobile is mine, I LIVE IN THE PRE ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL ERA!
Darkness, darkness, as Jesse Colin Young would sing.
Yes, I get a new iPhone every year. I can rationalize it. Because it’s the most used device I have, more than my Macs, more than my car, so I treat myself and pay through the nose for the experience, full sale.
And I get my iPhone through Apple, because the transaction is seamless. I want to do it all online because online there are no ERRORS!
But to saturate the oriental coasters, the iPhone goes on sale at 5 a.m., and I don’t get up that early to order, so mine always comes late, and it came yesterday.
I wasn’t going to set it up. I remember the old days, when there were computer problems, before OS X. You could spend all night trying to get your hardware or software to work, and sometimes you found out it wasn’t even your fault, there was a bug in the system .
But since it was 2022, I decided to take the risk.
It failed. The activation and transfer. I’ve never experienced this before. I had to reset that damn phone and start all over again.
But the second time it worked, until…
THE NEW PHONE WAS BRICK!
Well, it had a blank screen, dark black, and I didn’t dare touch it for fear of messing up the transfer process.
But it’s 2022, and knowing that calling tech support was just a waste of time, I did my own research and found it to be a recognized bug. WHAT???
Apple just said to force quit and reboot. I mean, why isn’t this published anymore?
So I thought I was free. But then I tried to send a message and…
It wouldn’t go on. And that’s strange, I mean I had wifi service.
I couldn’t figure out what was wrong.
And then I couldn’t call either.
And I’m researching on my iPad, going through all the clues. Toggle Airplane mode, reset network settings, reboot countless times and nothing ever worked.
And then I saw Om Malik’s tweet that he was on the phone for four hours with Verizon with the same problem, but it was too late to talk to anyone at Verizon other than the chatbot, which is built for idiots. Have you plugged it in, charged it? So I kept experimenting.
Maybe it was the range of the cell. So I got in my car at 11pm and drove to the Whole Foods parking lot… Nada.
Now unlike before, when you transfer data from one iPhone to another, now it KILLS the other iPhone. So I couldn’t use the iPhone 13 Pro Max either.
But in the morning…
But I had a busy day. Worse, a follow-up phone call to my doctor is my annual physical. I ended up using Felice’s iPhone, an old 7, and there was a problem, but I got through it.
Then I called Apple.
I have India. Or at least someone with an Indian accent. A heavy Indian accent. That used to be the advantage of Apple, you have an Anglo, an American. And I’m not saying Indians don’t know the technology, but I’m saying so much from these people that I CANNOT UNDERSTAND!
And this woman made me do the same damn things I’ve done multiple times, I knew more about that damn phone than she did, which is one of the reasons why I don’t call tech support. You must be wasting all this time talking to someone who assumes you are an idiot, who doesn’t know much to begin with, waiting to be kicked up to a senior tech.
But this woman told me to call Verizon, and when I thought about Om’s text, I did.
And spent nearly an hour with someone going through the same damn “repairs” I spent two hours on the night before. Finally this man kicked me upstairs.
And the next hour the expert technician couldn’t fix my damn phone either. He even put me on hold and called Apple. He left me saying that he had thrown the matter up the food chain to the supertech team, gave me a case number and told me he would call me back tonight. But when I pushed him, he said HOPEFUL tonight. Then he said sometime tomorrow.
And yes, I have email. But tomorrow I have to go to someone’s house, a place I’ve never been before, and I think I’ll have to print out a map like I did in the days of MapQuest.
So I decide to email Om. And this is what he said:
“I’m sorry to hear you’re having the same issues as me. It took them all day to figure out it’s a real bug and on Verizon’s side. This is a much bigger problem than they acknowledge.
For example, the PR guy who contacted me later pinged me and sent a long email. Here’s the part that told me they’re lying: “Your escalation helped identify a provisioning anomaly that affected a small number of customer activations. We quickly located and solved the problem.’
This is PR speaking at its best. By the time he responded, I was doing what I had to do.
I just decided enough was enough and switched to TMobile. It took me 30 minutes to switch and 30 seconds to use the eSIM to get my number working. It was seamless as Apple intended.
I have two lines on TMobile and pay 90 for Magenta Max 55+ for unlimited everything. I paid about $170 a month to Verizon. The whole quality network thing worked 25 years ago, but now it’s just a sham.
If TMobile’s coverage is good where you live or in Aspen (where you seem to go often), switch. You really do get 5g. I am getting 400 Mbps on my phone.
Enough with Verizon and its draconian accusations! TMobile isn’t perfect, but damn it, they’re cheap and they won’t cost you anything.
PS: I may hate them in a few weeks, but for now I’m glad Verizon isn’t part of my life.”
If you don’t know Om Malik google him, he’s a player. Like that old song, he ain’t got no time for the pain.
So what are the chances that senior tech at Verizon will contact me with the solution? PROBABLY ZERO!
Now what, driving to the Apple Store to waste hours and still not get a solution?
Or the Verizon Wireless store, which is run by dummies?
I don’t plan on switching to T-Mobile, but I’ll be honest, I looked it up. The speeds are fantastic, due to spectrum issues. Verizon bought spectrum that allows for faster speeds, only it doesn’t go very far and doesn’t penetrate walls and there isn’t that much of it anyway. But to get into it, T-Mobile still has spotty nationwide service, check it out: https://bit.ly/3yfXcGa
And the price doesn’t really matter to me. I pay extra for the best. But if I have no service at all?
So I resorted to tweeting from Verizon. Needless to say I got no response.
So I’m writing this. Because this is now my only means of communication, email.
Downright ridiculous.
I HAVE NO SERVICE!
When the internet goes down in an office, everyone goes home.
But I’m already home, where should I go?
I have no idea.