I’ve been quite enamoured with my iPhone, personally I don’t think any other smartphone comes close at the moment but I’m no Apple fan boy, just a pragmatist. If something better comes along I’ll be onto it. Unfortunately, I and many many others have been experiencing unpredictable lock ups since the 3.1 OS update. It didn’t manifest itself immediately after the update but once it started I was getting it once a day, Turning 3G and wifi off stopped it for me but some people were getting it much more often and for a lot it seemed that nothing they tried helped other than downgrading to 3.0.1 – not something Apple sanctioned or made easy. When the iPhone coma (as it came to be known) occurred incoming calls just rang out, they didn’t go to voicemail and sometimes the lockup was accompanied by the battery being completely flattened and the phone becoming very hot. Good for it I’m sure!
Shit happens of course, bugs often don’t show themselves until something is made live and used in the real world, you deal with it. What is unforgivable is Apple’s silence on the issue, some acknowledgement of the problem and a statement to the effect of “we’re working on it” would have been much more preferable to the deadly silence we got. There were over 2000 posts in this single thread on the Apple forum alone yet not a single word from Apple on the issue anywhere. The 3.1.2 update doesn’t specifically mention the locking up problem but does say it “Resolves sporadic issue that may cause iPhone not to wake from sleep” and early indications are it does fix the coma bug.
So that’s soured my “Apple experience” somewhat, phone, 3G and wifi are core features after all. Here’s hoping 3.1.2 does fix the problem, so far so good. I can’t see that it can make matters worse.
It is certainly the last update I will be rushing into.
Sadly it looks like I might have another poor customer service tale to tell soon, involving a dead monitor, a 3 year on site warranty and a manufacturer that doesn’t seem to like returning calls or emails. Hopefully they can yet redeem themselves as I’ve had excellent customer service from them on the one occassion I previously had need for it. I’ll let you know how I get on.
Most Popular