About a month ago I noticed that the Home button was getting less and less responsive. The problem was intermittent, but it was getting more and more frequent.

I would sometimes have to hit the Home button two or three times before it would register. A friend told me that he thought that the issue may not be the home button, but the iPhone software itself. He explained that since he upgraded to the iPhone 3.0 OS that he had experienced some lag and slowness and had also noticed that when he hits the Home button that it may take an extra second to respond.

I performed my own trials to test this possibility and found that the phone didn’t respond at all. I also later updated to 3.1 which fixes most of the lagging issues, but it didn’t resolve my problem.

I decided to head over to the Apple Store to let them have a look. As usual, the place was a complete zoo with people falling all over themselves in there. I find it weird that the store is always so full of people since I never actually see anyone buying anything.

I headed over to the tech support line to talk to a “mac genius” (are they really that full of themselves to come up with that title?). There are lots of people on line and nobody in sight tending to any of them. I finally see a woman in an apple tshirt over by a table with a computer on it. I walk over and briefly explain the problem with my iPhone. She looks at me with pity in her eyes and explains that “there are no more reservations available to see a mac genius today” then then motioned to the computer on the table and told me to book a reservation for another day.

I was a bit annoyed at this. These are the same people that claim that their products are a million times more reliable than pc’s. If that’s the case then why are there more people with problems than mac geniuses available on any given day?

I went through the motions on the reservation system only to find out that the next appointment I could get was several days later during the week. I gave up and left.  Several weeks passed as I was very busy. I finally decided to go back and give it another try at the Apple store.

I went online to apple’s website to book an appointment (I learned I needed to do this at the first experience). While going through the motions I hit the page that has you put in your serial number to check your warranty status. Unfortunately this is where I discovered that in the last two weeks my warranty on my iPhone had expired (You can check your warranty here: https://selfsolve.apple.com/GetWarranty.do ). I book my appointment.

Needless to say I was stunned and pissed. While I was on my way to the store, I was running several scenarios through my head on how this would work out. Most of them ended with me being escorted out of the store screaming bloody murder because they wanted to charge me hundreds of dollars to fix my iPhone which they should have fixed free under warranty two weeks earlier.

So I arrive at the Apple store and it is the mad house that it has always been with people everywhere. I head over to the tech support line and wait my turn for a “mac genius”. After a short wait, one of the mac genius ladies comes over and asks me what the deal is with my iPhone. I explain it to her and watch as she dutifully hit’s the button, launches and app, hits the button, opens my contacts, hits the button and on and on. She finally looks at me and agrees that there is a problem.

She then says “ok, I’m going to take this in the back and try to change the screen as the home button is one piece with the screen. In the event that doesn’t work, I’m going to replace your iPhone. Is your iPhone backed up in case of that?” I said yes it is, carry on!

At this point, I’m hopeful that this will be a free repair but I’m also waiting for her to come back telling me that she just ran my serial number and I’m out of warranty.

After about 15 minutes the mac genius came back out and said, “here it is… working much better than before!”. She then pulled out a piece of paper and said initial here and here and sign here and here. I glanced all around the page quickly making sure that I’m not agreeing to pay $300 to fix my $200 phone and lo and behold there was a dollar amount listed in the sum of $0.00. I was very happy and gleefully signed.

I don’t know if she just made a mistake by not charging me when she should have (it’s easy to imagine she was in a hurry due to the crowds of people waiting) or if Apple’s customer service is just that good.

Either way I have to say that I am thoroughly impressed with the outcome and that I didn’t have to beg or plead or scream. Kudos to Apple for not making me put up a fight for being 2 weeks out of warranty.

My iPhone is working like a champ and I am a happy camper. Go Apple!