This weekend I made a trip to the Apple store to finally deal with the terrible (worse than yours) battery life I have been experiencing with the 3GS. It did not take long for the Genius to confirm the battery was defective and I was soon on my way with a replacement device.
When I got home it was time to go through the restore process to hopefully be back where I was data-wise and hopefully things would be as they were. My experience was largely positive though a few notes.
1. The single connection through iTunes remains an amazingly strong point for Apple. The way a device backs up and restores is unparalled. Not perfect, but solid.
2. If you dont use iPhoto or Aperture for imaging you need to manually back up your pictures but the restore process does bring them back a well as all that data is stored together.
3. iTunes installed every app I had ever downloaded which was not what I wanted at all but it has been easier to remove things again than trying to hunt down apps again.
4. The application restration process sets up apps in alphabetical order which is seriosly annoying. I have more apps than can be displayed now and even using iTunes to slide things around, it will take a while and some patience to rebuild my prior setup.
5. I have 3 email accounts and both my work exchange account as well as my .me account needed to have their passwords entered to connect. My voicemail password also needed to be entered though that happened before I had a chance to sync and seemed more related to visual voicemail wanting to connect.
The process of restoring the iPhone, updating the software to the latest version and then resyncing all my media took a few hours. I only had to click ok a few times and spent most of the time cycling so I hardly noticed.
Replacing a device because you need to too is consderably less fun than when you choose to buy a new one. Even with the few hitches Ive menioned Apple is leading the customer experience in an area that is always frustrating.
I haven't needed to do that yet but its good to know yours was a smooth one, have you ever resynced contacts in gmail on your Iphone? I've only done it once but i am scared of what a mess it might be.
point 3 and 4 certainly does not represent the normal behavior – must have been a bug or coincidence. for example, the “not restoring the app icons where they have been” bug has been fixed quite some time now.
also, the need to re-enter the password is a justified security feature in my view.
please keep us updated on how the new battery performs, or if it indeed just was your abnormal hard-core usage 😉
I don't sync contacts with Google … way too wacky. I use Exchange and .Mac which of course brings up the ridiculous bit about isolated data stores allowing you to see multiple versions of the same contact.
so far I'm up 20% from the commute, though I forgot my headphones so no music playing … will see how the day ends up.
It does not seem that the bugs have been fixed … ;(
A couple of days ago my iPhone 3G kept freezing at the same point when scrolling through the home screen apps. I did a full reset & restore & was impressed to see that it only restored just the apps I previously had on the iPhone (not everything I had downloaded). It also put them back in the correct order. Strange I saw different behaviour to your experience.
very strange indeed … come on Apple.
no, it's not strange – it's actually the normal behavior 🙂
If I understood correctly, u stated that leading customer experience is that you have to do all that when replacing a defective battery?
I think not.
Some devices let u change the battery without all that..:).
First of all – things happen, tech fails. It happens to all brands. I assumed there was fault with the battery which was confirmed by the store and they replaced my iphone no questions.
If I had needed to hard reset to start over which never happens with other devices 😉 – I would have had to rebuild from scratch, something I've done countless times. That process usually takes hours or manual “labor” and sometimes a day or two until you are back again. Compare that to Apple's one-button restore.
My experience with Nokia (since I know that's implied) has not been the same on the repair side either …
I have received a number of devices over the years (gratis) and most have been great, though there were a few bumps.
– My N91 just bricked out. It was sent into repair (no stores / repair options) and came back fixed, yet was still busted.
– I had a device (believe it was the N70) with one of the batteries Nokia recalled. I filled out the form to get a replacement, waited and nothing ever arrived.
– On my first visit to the Nokia Flagship in NYC, I was looking to update the firmware on my N73 as I did not have a PC and there was (and still is) no way to do this from a Mac. The store refused to help. They would not even permit me to do it myself just on one of their PCs. I suppose they are mitigating the risk a bit, but still …
What's your experience of the battery life with the new model? I realised that my aversion to the iPhone 3Gs was partly due to your initial experiences with battery life. It seemed even worse than my N97.
Just realised what I wanted to ask you. You mentioned you sync your iPhone with an Exchange based account. Have you had any experience syncing the iPhone with iCal when the calendars are synced with GCal via Exchange? I tried out the new iSync support for the N97 and found that the sync doesn't includes the “delegate” calendars associated with my one GCal calendar (http://pauljacobson.org/2009/11/03/nokia-n97-2-…). MobileMe doesn't even see GCal synced calendars at all.
I'm getting a day with moderate usage. If I spend an intensive hour on the commute I need to consider topping up before coming home (for another hour) at the end of the day. That's about normal for me …
I sync over Exchange with my full work account … it works great – no issues. I do also sync with .me OTA, not via iSync. The main issue there is that the data is essentially separate. You get duplicates you can't merge
I intentionally left Nokia out of it, but since u insist..:).
My experience here in Finland is that u can go to a store and get good service in the matters of warranty. i.e during two years warranty time they have taken the device to service and it has been sent back problem solved. I dont remember it taking that long, but of course it usually lasted few days if they couldn't solve it at the store.
All this is included in the price of the device, I don't have to buy additional Nokia care packages. I am not sure how it works with Apple warranty and what kind of service u get with additional paid service packages, but if everything I hear about geniuses giving new phones when something has gone awry falls into normal warranty included in the price of the phone, that is indeed good service. I once got a new battery for my N82, and that I got instantly, so no difference there.
As rebuilding the device, it didn't sound too uncomplicated on the iPhone. There were a lot of arranging to do as well.
For rebuilding a Nokia phone I think u could use the back-up file (I periodically do those with PC-suite and the N97 even back-ups information automaticly to a separate memory card because I have enabled that function in the settings.) to do that, but I haven't had the need. The one time I had to rebuild the phone I wanted set it up differently, I am not sure how the back-up feature works. I think it does not install the programs, but at least the files should be there.
So, media u can sync, settings and address book etc, comes with the back up, so u r left with the installing the apps. U don't have to hunt them down, because the files are in the back-up and even Ovi store have feature, where u can redownload everything from the your profile's information page (Iam not going to say Ovi store is as good as iTunes, when it clearly isn't, but this is a new feature showing that even Ovi store is evolving). I am not saying all of the above works just like that, because ppl tend to have differencies on what kind of media they have and so on. It is of course a blessing for Apple that they can restrict the way people can use their phones..:).
Updating firmware goes without hitch nowadays and u don't normally have to do anything after that. Everything is there like it was before the uppgrading, u just start using the phone as before.
This reply is sent purely to give some information about what kind of service u should get when Nokia service works as it should be and how u can rebuild a Nokia device.
I understand u r happy iPhone user and my original comment was not meant to be a provocative one, just just a bit cheeky, like the few comments above..:)
I intentionally left Nokia out of it, but since u insist..:).
My experience here in Finland is that u can go to a store and get good service in the matters of warranty. i.e during two years warranty time they have taken the device to service and it has been sent back problem solved. I dont remember it taking that long, but of course it usually lasted few days if they couldn't solve it at the store.
All this is included in the price of the device, I don't have to buy additional Nokia care packages. I am not sure how it works with Apple warranty and what kind of service u get with additional paid service packages, but if everything I hear about geniuses giving new phones when something has gone awry falls into normal warranty included in the price of the phone, that is indeed good service. I once got a new battery for my N82, and that I got instantly, so no difference there.
As rebuilding the device, it didn't sound too uncomplicated on the iPhone. There were a lot of arranging to do as well.
For rebuilding a Nokia phone I think u could use the back-up file (I periodically do those with PC-suite and the N97 even back-ups information automaticly to a separate memory card because I have enabled that function in the settings.) to do that, but I haven't had the need. The one time I had to rebuild the phone I wanted set it up differently, I am not sure how the back-up feature works. I think it does not install the programs, but at least the files should be there.
So, media u can sync, settings and address book etc, comes with the back up, so u r left with the installing the apps. U don't have to hunt them down, because the files are in the back-up and even Ovi store have feature, where u can redownload everything from the your profile's information page (Iam not going to say Ovi store is as good as iTunes, when it clearly isn't, but this is a new feature showing that even Ovi store is evolving). I am not saying all of the above works just like that, because ppl tend to have differencies on what kind of media they have and so on. It is of course a blessing for Apple that they can restrict the way people can use their phones..:).
Updating firmware goes without hitch nowadays and u don't normally have to do anything after that. Everything is there like it was before the uppgrading, u just start using the phone as before.
This reply is sent purely to give some information about what kind of service u should get when Nokia service works as it should be and how u can rebuild a Nokia device.
I understand u r happy iPhone user and my original comment was not meant to be a provocative one, just just a bit cheeky, like the few comments above..:)