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Smashed iPhone

April 11, 2009 | mark | Apple

Update: According to my live traffic feed, busted iphones are hip. My bro posted this to reddit.

Update2: @chrisrodde Just reminded me that this will be my third iPhone – I drowned the last one on a fishing trip with him.

Update3: Just visited AT&T. The conversation went like this:

AT&T guy: Um yeah, so lets see if we can do anything for you here today.

Me: Great! So maybe I can get a discount on a 16G iPhone? [Thinking I can pay less than the $199 replacement cost]

AT&T guy: Um no I don’t think so. You’ve only had the phone for 7 months.

AT&T guy: So that’ll be $299 for the new phone.

Me: Um. WHAT? The phone only costs $199 to buy! On Apple’s site they’re advertising it for $199.

AT&T guy: Well you can go to Apple and try.

Me: What does that mean?

AT&T: Well Apple might sell you an iPhone that’s $199 but if they know it’s a replacement with no upgrade then they’ll probably charge you $299.

Realizing that this guy was just part of the corporate meat grinder and really didn’t know WTF he was talking about I called Apple and they’re going to sell me a replacement handset for $199. Looks like AT&T need to realize that they’re just providing the pipe and don’t have a monopoly on handsets on their network anymore.

Original smashed iPhone post:

In one last selfless act of recursion my smashed iphone has taken a picture of itself taking a picture of itself taking a picture of itself…  for your enjoyment:

I’m off to the Apple store to buy a new one this morning. So:

  • Get a cover for your iphone because if you drop it so it pancakes screen down on the ground, it’ll smash
  • The screen is real glass and smashes like real glass
  • It also cuts and splinters into your finger like real glass. I’ve pulled two splinters from my index finger already checking my email.

3 Comments

    Nick

    Yip, thats the most common problem with’em large touch screen phones.

    Commented on April 11, 2009 at 11:25 am

    Jason Martin

    Usually the ‘new’ price has small print saying “with new activation”. The price of the phone is being subsidised by the phone company and they amortize that over the life of your contract. The replacement cost is higher since they can’t do that. However, depending on how far into your contract they are they will give you the new-activation price if you agree to extend your contract.

    Commented on April 11, 2009 at 2:40 pm

    cak

    Please keep us updated on every boring minutiae of your life. I am still waiting for the update of what you had for breakfast this morning. I thought all you guys moved to twitter.

    Commented on April 11, 2009 at 3:11 pm

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My name is Mark Maunder. I've been blogging since around 2003 when I started on Movable Type and ended up on WordPress which is what I use to publish today. With my wife Kerry, I'm the co-founder of Wordfence which protects over 5 million WordPress sites from hackers and is run by a talented team of 36 people. I'm an instrument rated pilot and I fly a Cessna 206 along with a 1964 Cessna 172 in the Pacific Northwest and Colorado. I'm originally from Cape Town, South Africa but live in the US these days. I code in a bunch of languages and am quite excited about our emerging AI overlords and how they're going to be putting us to work for them.