Death of the iPhone
Well, okay … not in the “Death of the iPod Classic” sense. Really, it’s just the death of my iPhone. Tragic, yes–but not on a corporate scale.
So I got in the car, threw my iPod on the docking cable, and listened to some Tool coming in to work this morning. I didn’t think anything of it cuz I knew I could come in to work and throw my phone on the USB cable and charge it. Well, ha ha … no love from the USB port. “Hmm … that’s odd.” So I tried a different USB port. No luck. Tried the iPod on the same cable. LOVE! YAY! So it’s not the cable. So, now we’re back to “Booooo.”
I ran out to the car to test the phone on the docking cable. Worked fine. Started charging, so I figured it must just be the USB cable. So I ran down the cube farm and found someone with an iPod cable. “Hey, can I borrow your cable?”
“Umm … sure.”
“Thanks. Oh, erm … yah. I’m Chris by the way. Relatively new writer.”
“Good to meet you …”
“Thanks. Okay … back in a sec.”
Again, no love. Not a single port on my desktop or any of my neighbor’s desktops provided joy, happiness or rapture. I tried both my and borrowed cable.
Verdict? Genius Bar appointment at the local Apple Store. I don’t know what they’ll say, but I do have the Apple Care package, so that better pull some weight. They’re pretty good about “turning and winking” as they read over the warranty and explain what is and isn’t covered. Though even without Apple Care, this seems pretty suspect. I mean … I had the thing sitting right on my nightstand all night, and it was charging fine yesterday. I have no idea what could possibly cause spontaneous internal problems, but something had to have happened. I don’t get it.
Well, okay … now this is just weird. Just now I unplugged it and repluggd it back in, and it turns on and shows 7%. Except now the battery is still draining. I don’t know what the deal is. Something’s defective …
Anyway, I have an appointment at 2:40. We’ll see what they say.
Brian McCabe
ten bucks says it’s the battery. Batteries in iPods go from being seemingly fine to totally useless really, really fast. Couple that with iPod (and iPhone) making it as difficult as possible to open one of their newer devices and swap the battery out, and you’re looking at a PITA situation. If that’s what it is, I would imagine the folks at the apple store should be able to address it on the spot.
frissonic
i don’t know man. they ran some diagnostic stuff at the store, so i’m putzing around google trying to find similar diagnostic stuff. so far, no luck, but the guy who checked it seemed to think that the battery was okay. he’s not sure if it wasn’t the iOS 4.3 that was jacking it up, so he installed 4.3.1 which just came out today. so far, it’s working, but i’m not convinced it was 4.3. i don’t know WHAT it was, but the phone is charging now, so that’s good.