I Got a New iPhone 6

Part I — Going to the Apple Store

I got a new iPhone this past weekend. I had been thinking about getting a new one every since the 6 had come out. I figured I would get one when I got back from my trip to New York.

The decision was sort of made for me. While in New York all of a sudden my phone kept asking me to log into the cloud. It asked like every 15 seconds or so.

Of course I don’t know what the password is for the account. That’s because it is under my old e-mail address from Earthlink. I went through a long back and forth with Apple a year ago when I couldn’t get into the account. Since I don’t use the cloud, I didn’t proceed any further with trying to solve this problem. I’d spent too much time on it as it was.

But having the log in screen come up every 15 seconds made the phone almost useless. I stopped off at the Verizon Store in Union Station when I got back from DC. Turns out you have to order the phone and it’s delivered directly to you. I didn’t want it sent to my house and I forgot the address at work. So I decided I’d try later.

I had dinner with Stu on Friday. On the way to the subway I stopped at the Verizon store on L Street. They said they didn’t have any but the Apple Store did. I just assumed he meant the Apple Store in Georgetown. I went home and found out when they opened which was 10. I decided I would try and go in the morning. I figured it would be easier to get a parking space early in the morning rather later in the day.

I headed out to Georgetown a little before 9:30 on Saturday. Traffic wasn’t bad and I found a parking space a non-metered parking space no less with ease. Off I headed to the Apple Store. There was a line waiting to get into the store I didn’t know it at the time but the line was for people trying to get a new phone.

The store opened at 10 and in rushed the people. And thus started a less than enjoyable time in the store. Everyone who’d been in the line knew what was going on. But subsequent people who came into the store were given very little information on what was going on. I was one of those people. It looked like the line was for people who’d already ordered the phone.

I waited around for a few minutes to see if I could catch someone’s attention and ask what was going on. I finally went up to someone and asked. The woman pointed to the line and said that was the line for people wanting the new phone. And before I could ask another question she turned and walked away. My question would have been were the people in line people who had already ordered the phone.

I get in line. The line moves very very slowly that was do in part because there was only one Apple guy working with people. He took what service provider you have the phone with. Then he showed you what model of phones were available under that plan. Not sure why they would be different from one carrier to another but that seemed to be the case. Finally he got to me. I’m set up on the same plan I had with Verizon. I got the 64 gig phone. I figured the 16 gig would probably be too small in the not too distant future. Also the 64 gig was only $100 more. I was then sent a text which had a URL in it and that opened a web page which had all the information on getting the phone.

More waiting in line. At one point one of the managers of the store came along and said that we didn’t have to wait in line for our phone to be set up. As it was it would take around 45 minutes to get to everyone. We could come back later in the day until 7 which is when they closed. There were a couple of takers. I wasn’t one of them. I wasn’t going to come back later in the day. This was my window of opportunity to get the phone.

The line moved very slowly. They didn’t seem to have a group of employees dedicated to setting up people’s phones. It seemed as people became through other duties they would take care of one of the people in the line.

Finally they got to me. Chris helped set up the phone. I told him I didn’t want to transfer any of the information from the old phone to the new phone because of the Apple ID problem. He said he’d take a try at it. He brought up the old account. There was some back forth about the information on the account. He came to the conclusion I’d need to call Apple about it. He also added the account was really old. It had been set up in 2003.

I got handed off to another person who helped me get the phone up and running. I headed home. In all it took about two hours. But my adventure was just beginning.

Part II — Restoring the Phone and What a Blunder that Was

I went to Potbelly by my house and had lunch. Then I headed home to complete the set up of my new iPhone.

If I’d thought things through I might not have done what I did next. But in the long run it resolved an on-going problem that I had with the last phone.

I’d set up the new iPhone with my new Apple ID. Once home I backed up my old phone and then I connected the new phone to my computer. Up pops a dialog box. It says do you want to restore the phone or set it up as new. I said restore and this where my problems began.

When I did the restore it restored all of the old setting from the old phone. Including the Apple ID. Thus it was under the Earthlink account which of course I couldn’t gain access to. I was just a very small amount pissed off. Let’s put it this way Charlie and Linus ran upstairs and hid underneath my bed for the next hour or so.

It took me a little while to locate a number to call on the Apple site. After I did I called. I got a guy named Jason. At one point he asked if it was all right for him to call me Jason. And I said Jason it’s fine that you call me Jason. I think he did that in part to try and put me in a better mood.

I went through what had happened. He assured me by the end of the phone call the problem would be solved. We quickly figured out that this problem needed to go to the higher level of tech support. Jason said he was going to put me on hold and get me connected to someone. It took a few around 10 minutes or so to do that. But Jason came on every few minutes to say I’d be connected shortly.

Jason came on again and said that he had Estevan on the line and he’d be helping me. Estevan started by asking me some questions about what had happened. I said it would be probably be better for me just to tell him what had happened.

The big problem was that the find iPhone function on the phone was on. In oder to delete the Apple ID associated with the phone you have to turn off the find iPhone function. But of course to do that you have to know the password to the account. After my story, Estevan said he would be able to help and that he could solve the problem.

I won’t go into all of the details but Estevan was able to solve this problem. The correct ID is now on my phone. The one question I have about this is why I wasn’t able to get someone to help me delete the old ID off of my old phone when I first called about the problem in July 2013.

And that’s my story of how I got a new iPhone.