New Phone Ready. FINALLY!
Our new iPhone 16 Pro phones were delivered Wednesday afternoon. They told us it'd take a few weeks, but then the phones shipped in 3 days. Woohoo, fast delivery, amiright? Ah, but then came the fun part. We'd physically gotten the phones but we still had to get them to work.
Years ago when we bought new phones we'd go to the Verizon store (or AT&T store), get phones there, and they'd get them all set up for us in a matter of, like, 10 minutes. Now it's self service. And it doesn't work.
Hawk started her phone migration Wednesday night. I held off, figuring I'd watch her go through the process and learn if there were avoidable gotchas. (Narrator's voice: There were gotchas, but they were not avoidable.)
First, copying the data from old phone to new via Bluetooth/wifi was slow. Then, it failed. The phones flashed up a toll-free number and said you'd need to call for help.
Then, here's the funny thing. You can't call in for help on your phone. On either of your phones. You have to use a third phone, borrowed from someone else, to call. Because the transfer process borks your old phone before thew new phone is usable.
Hawk spent at least an hour on the phone- on my phone-working through the problems with her phones. In the end they got it work. But wow, what a shit show compared to the old way of employees in the store being to set this up in 10 minutes while you wait.
Oh, but it gets worse. I started my upgrade on Thursday morning. The "automated", "self serve" upgrade process predictably failed. I wrestled with multiple calls to customer support for three fucking hours trying to get it resolved. After 3 hours I had the data transferred to the new phone but not the service transferred. I paused the process at that point because I couldn't keep fucking with my phone all day; I had a job I needed to do. At least at that point my old phone was still working, so I figured I'd cut my losses and leave it at that for a while.
I came back to the transfer process this morning, almost 48 hours later. It took another 4 calls and a few more hours. Plus a span of about 2 hours in the middle when both phones were borked. I decided, Fuck it, I want lunch and I can do it without a phone.
What a fucking mess.
This is far and away the worst experience I've ever had updating an iPhone to a newer iPhone. ...And yes, I've done it before. Several times. This was literally 10x the time, effort, and frustration of any other upgrade experience I've had.
Years ago when we bought new phones we'd go to the Verizon store (or AT&T store), get phones there, and they'd get them all set up for us in a matter of, like, 10 minutes. Now it's self service. And it doesn't work.
Hawk started her phone migration Wednesday night. I held off, figuring I'd watch her go through the process and learn if there were avoidable gotchas. (Narrator's voice: There were gotchas, but they were not avoidable.)
First, copying the data from old phone to new via Bluetooth/wifi was slow. Then, it failed. The phones flashed up a toll-free number and said you'd need to call for help.
Then, here's the funny thing. You can't call in for help on your phone. On either of your phones. You have to use a third phone, borrowed from someone else, to call. Because the transfer process borks your old phone before thew new phone is usable.
Hawk spent at least an hour on the phone- on my phone-working through the problems with her phones. In the end they got it work. But wow, what a shit show compared to the old way of employees in the store being to set this up in 10 minutes while you wait.
Oh, but it gets worse. I started my upgrade on Thursday morning. The "automated", "self serve" upgrade process predictably failed. I wrestled with multiple calls to customer support for three fucking hours trying to get it resolved. After 3 hours I had the data transferred to the new phone but not the service transferred. I paused the process at that point because I couldn't keep fucking with my phone all day; I had a job I needed to do. At least at that point my old phone was still working, so I figured I'd cut my losses and leave it at that for a while.
I came back to the transfer process this morning, almost 48 hours later. It took another 4 calls and a few more hours. Plus a span of about 2 hours in the middle when both phones were borked. I decided, Fuck it, I want lunch and I can do it without a phone.
What a fucking mess.
This is far and away the worst experience I've ever had updating an iPhone to a newer iPhone. ...And yes, I've done it before. Several times. This was literally 10x the time, effort, and frustration of any other upgrade experience I've had.