Apple Conflicted: iPhone 4 I Love You, but I Hate You

We are an Apple family to the core (cheesy pun intended), so when the new iPhone was announced we both watched the live blogs of the developers conference (WWDC) online, me on my MacBook and he on his MacBook Pro.

The day the window for pre-ordering opened my husband was up at 3:00 a.m. attempting to order. Mine was ordered at 8:30 a.m and his at 3:30 p.m. We don’t mess around.

We both have iPad 3Gs.

My point is this: WE LOVE APPLE PRODUCTS. Can’t live without them. They are a part of our annual family budget. It’s kind of a big deal.

Well, it’s been a month since my phone came in. I’ve loved it (even though I really wanted a white one) and cared for it and kept it away from the 10 month old. But my love has been tainted because it drops just about every call. Not because of the antenna issue that’s getting a lot of press.

My problem is the proximity sensor.

The phone doesn’t realize it’s up against my face, so the screen lights up and my cheek puts people on hold or hangs up on them or tries to call them on FaceTime or whatever.

It’s taken me this long to even admit there’s a problem. So, today I finally decided to call Apple.

My first attempt resulted in being parked on hold for 9 1/2 minutes by the automated system. Never talked to a person on this one.

My second attempt got me to Janice (her name is has been changed because I’m not that mean), who asked me if I’d tried rebooting, which I had. She then asked me if I’d tried replacing the SIM card, which I hadn’t. Why would I do that? It has nothing to do with the proximity sensor.

This is about the time that I realized she was reading prompts on a screen and probably had zero iPhone knowledge. In fact, after being on the phone with her for just a few minutes I had concluded that she’d probably never owned an iPhone.

She asked my about the case several times (probably five). Each time I would explain that I was using the “rubber band” sold by Apple. This is about the time I started to get exasperated. We were probably twenty minutes into the hour-long ordeal at this point. She told me to restore the phone. If that didn’t work, go to an AT&T store and get a new SIM card. If that didn’t work, call back and they would send me a new phone.

Okay. I obviously have nothing better to do (I really don’t).

She put me on hold (for a good 5 minutes) to make some notes.

Came back and my phone had put her on hold.

Then she asked me more of the same questions and said she had decided to just replace the phone.

Anyway, this is how it all played out from my perspective: (start at the bottom)

I think the @evolvedmommy feed speaks for itself. I was not happy. I’m still not happy, but have at least calmed down enough to be thankful that the situation is being taken care of.

This day will be remembered in this house as the day Apple came crashing down off of that pedestal.