Review: iPhone glass replacement from Mission: Repair
My Situation
I dropped my iPhone 3G and broke its glass. I was so distraught about dropping it that I never got a picture of the broken glass. Trust me, it was depressing.
I checked with the Apple store about a repair, and they offered me a replacement for $299 + tax. That seemed steep and wasteful, so I went hunting online for repair options. No need to fill landfills with broken iPhones. I found two companies who do iPhone glass repairs and had positive reviews: Mission: Repair and iResQ. After blogging about my broken glass, I got emails and blog comments from employees at both companies. Way to be on top of the blogosphere, guys. After checking prices and reviews, I decided to go with Mission: Repair.
Disclaimer: Ryan at Mission: Repair offered to pay me for the ads on my blog whether I got my repair through them or not. He also offered me the same discount available to Apple store visitors who get a coupon from the Genius bar.
My Repair
I chose the 3G iPhone Digitizer Glass Repair and the "I'll send it in; return it to me overnight!" option for $9 extra.
My Review
So, how did it go? Swimmingly!
I sent the phone off via USPS Priority Mail with delivery confirmation on Monday from Ann Arbor. According to the USPS, my package arrived at 11:25am. Less than 2 hours later, I received an email from Phil at MR letting me know they had received my iPhone and would fix it right away. They fixed it Wednesday, shipped it first thing Thursday morning, and I received my phone back in near-new condition on Friday in Los Angeles (I was traveling). At first I was concerned that the glass was not flush with the sides of the phone, but I saw the "real" thing at the Apple store today, and the glass isn't flush on brand new iPhones either.
Bottom Line
Mission: Repair will fix your iPhone glass for less than the other guys and will do it fast and right. I highly recommend them.
iPhone apps: Syphone
Updated 2/21/2009
Syphone is a Mac freeware application that allows you to archive your iPhone SMS messages to your Mac hard drive. Here's a screenshot from my messages with Google Local:
Syphone screenshot
If you're using iPhone firmware 2.1+, you may get "No iPhones found!" in the drop down next to "iPhone" there near the top left. If so, go into Syphone's Preferences and uncheck the box marked "Run helper app in the background." Restart Syphone, and your iPhone and its messages should appear. You can change the colors, sort order, and export your messages to XML, PDF, or TXT.
Originally, I'd posted that I was unable to get the XML export to work. Ben commented that he was successful using XML export for one contact at a a time. This morning I tried again making sure I had one and only one contact selected. Success! Here's a screen shot of the XML output:
Syphone XML output
Now I'm definitely tempted to study text messaging. Any workgroups out there who all use iPhones and want to be in a study of text messaging at work?
Syphone stores its database in /Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup.
iPhone’s glass is broken. What to do?
UPDATE: I got my iPhone fixed by Mission: Repair and am very happy. See my review post.
Yes, I dropped my iPhone today. Yes, that drop, from less than 3 feet, cracked the glass. Yes, I wanted to cry.
Now what do I do? I went to the Genuis Bar at the Briarwood Apple Store right away, and they told me, as I expected, that they could get me a replacement iPhone for $299. You read that right. They didn't offer to repair my phone; they offered to replace it, maybe with a refurbished one, for the same price I originally paid. I asked if there were repair options, and they said not with them. Paying $299 would also get me a new warranty that lasts until August. As is, my warranty is void since the break was accidental. So,
Option 1: Pay Apple $299 and hope they give me a new one instead of a refurb.
I looked around online for other options. Since my warranty's void anyway, I'm not that concerned about a warranty-saving repair. This guy's site - http://3gcrackedglass.com - is pretty much right on about repair options and prices. The two sites I see mentioned most often when I search for repair info are iResQ and Mission:Repair. iResQ is supposedly an Apple Authorized repair provider, but they have some service and PR issues. Apparently that particular problem was resolved. So,
Option 2: Pay iResQ $129 or Mission:Repair $137 to fix it and ship it back overnight
Of course, I could always just live with the cracked screen, making
Option 3: Put the iPhone back in its case, and live with a cracked screen.
I had an InCase skin on my iPhone for awhile. I took it off because it made it really hard to get the phone in and out of my pocket. It also made it bulky. Oh, and, I was a little irked at having to pay $30 for an accessory to make the iPhone marginally more durable. The other $300 cell phones I've owned didn't need cases to be durable. If I'd had my case on today, my screen may not have cracked. I take responsibility for dropping my phone. I still think it's ludicrous to offer only replacement and not repair. I get that Apple makes a load more money doing it that way, but the process is infuriating and wasteful.
Mini rant about Apple
In the last 2.5 years, I've spent about $4100 on Apple hardware - 2 laptops and an iPhone. My MacBook required two new logic boards, three new keyboards, and a new hard drive. My MacBook Pro requires new fans and probably a new logic board. None of those 8 repairs were my fault. My laptops have spent about 2 weeks at Apple service facilities and require another 5-7 day stay to fix the fans. My iPhone has worked fine since I bought it in August, but the fact that it cannot withstand a rather routine and expected fall made me furious today. I've been patient with my other Apple hardware. I've sent my computer in for repair and tried to work on my dissertation using backup data and backup computers. I've been through the ringer with their hardware, and I'm exasperated. I don't want to be a whiner, and I don't want to minimize my role in breaking my iPhone. But, I don't think I can recommend Apple products anymore. They either come broken like my MacBook, break almost immediately like my MacBook Pro, or require unreasonable gentleness like my iPhone. At twice the price of comparable laptops and cell phones from competitors, I expected more. Sigh. I'm no longer convinced that the software advantages Apple platforms provide make them worth the hassle or cost. I'm left thinking maybe I should have stuck with my Dell and my BlackBerry.
Oh, and the total cost of ownership for Apple products are even higher. Every laptop needs $30 adapters to work with external monitors, and apparently every iPhone needs a $30 case to protect it. Yes, needs. So add 1.4% to your laptop bill for each adapter you need, and add 15-20% for a case for each iPhone. And those are just the beginning.
Google Makes My Life Harder
I like my new iPhone a great deal. I especially like good apps. For instance, the Yelp app rocks; it uses the "current location" feature of the iPhone to show me stuff nearby (such as restaurants). And it's Yelp, which I already use a lot, so it includes user-contributed reviews and info. The Yelp app takes something I love and use from the Web and makes it available and awesome on the iPhone. Easy, specialized, familiar, fast, localized, all things I like in a mobile application. Why can't Google do the same?
Google's iPhone versions of Gmail and Google Calendar are awful. I used both on my Blackberry, and I have new issues. First, they are not standalone applications. I have to go through Safari to get to them. That means I don't have a little "new Gmail" icon. I have to manually check my mail to see if there's anything there (or use the built in Mail app which I already mentioned I don't like). Gmail on the iPhone doesn't have a way for me to label messages. Sure, I can archive them to get them out of my inbox, but then they're lost in the "All Mail" ether. I couldn't label them through the Blackberry Gmail app either, so this isn't new, but it's still annoying.
Google Calendar for the iPhone lacks a rather important feature as well - Edit. Seriously? Google, you didn't think I'd want to edit calendar entries on my phone? It's not clear how I can view the "Standard" versions of either Gmail or Google Calendar. Google checks, finds that I'm on an iPhone, and serves up these "apps" that make my life harder. Maybe that's not fair. Maybe they just fail to make my life easier. I want to use my mobile device for mobile email and mobile calendar, and Google is making it hard for me to do that.
I'm hoping that there are features of Gmail and Google Calendar for the iPhone that I just haven't found or enabled properly. I don't want to go through iCal and syncing to get my calendar or through the very un-Gmail-like Mail app. Please help!
My new iPhone
I had a great week at the poker tables last week and spent some of my winnings on a 16GB iPhone. I've railed against Cingular for years over a fight we had about an alleged many hour phone call from Canada to the U.S. (I didn't make the call, they billed me, drama). I said I'd never go back. Ever. Then came the iPhone 3G. Well, and Cingular returned to AT&T. So I'm back. I'm not sure I'm ready to part with my BlackBerry Pearl, and I haven't ported my number yet just in case. First, I'll get them to unlock my BlackBerry so it can be a backup phone anyway. But that's not the point. My new iPhone is the point. Here are my favorite parts, my least favorite parts, and the things I need to think about some more.
+ overall awesomeness
+ giant screen
+ really good typo correction
+ free apps, especially Pandora and Yelp
+ GPS
+ MobileMe
- can't cut and paste from a text message
- gets hot when in use
- built in Mail app is U-G-L-Y
- AT&T sends me cryptic emails with abbreviations like "CTN" and "CSS" that make no sense
Needs more thought:
Should I fork over the $9.99 for a tethering app so that I can use it as a wifi modem with my laptop? (sigh, another $10 spent, most likely)
Should I buy new V-moda headphones or stick with my Shures? (probably Shures)
Should I keep my Seattle number as a reminder of my summer here? (doubtful)