The Downtempo Blog

This morning I experienced a minor tragedy, albeit one with a happy ending.

After emerging from a most delicious breakfast (at neighborhood fav Cindy’s Delicatessen — lox and eggs, yum!), I discovered my iPhone laying forlorn on the pavement outside my vehicle. The ringer was functional, but the screen was scrambled. Thankfully, the screen was not cracked.

My next stop was, of course, the friendly neighborhood Apple store. There I had a staggeringly good customer service experience. Staggeringly.

So to get to the point, they replaced my phone expeditiously (I think I was in and out in 20 minutes) and at no cost to me (hurrah!). But the thing that I wanted to note on the blog, was that the “free” part of my blissful replacement experience appeared to hinge on the dreaded visual inspection. Not one, but TWO Apple store employees looked over my poor phone with a fine toothed comb, and deemed me worthy of a replacement. But apparently too many scratches and dings to the plastic will void the warranty. And iPhones are not cheap to replace.

It was not clear to me what level of scratchitude would lead to future heartache (that remains a closely guarded secret of the nefarious genius bar), but I plan on being very conservative in the future.

Be gentle with your electronics people! And if you carry an iPhone, always wear protection.