Ms Fifikins

You know that whinge about my jebusPhone? The one where I crapped on about Sweety and her ineptitude and telling me that I may have to wait 6 weeks for my jebusPhone to be repaired and that the stoopid toy phone they gave me was the same as an iPhone?

Well all is somewhat forgiven! I did ring them Monday to ask and was told that the repairers don’t liaise with them and she didn’t know when it would be back. She also told me that most iPhones are back within 3 weeks. Made me wonder how many have had issues. So imagine my surprise yesterday when I had a message that it was back! Of course I got this message at 5.15pm after I had been napping on and off with this damned chest thing and realised I wouldn’t make it into the shop before it closed.

So I headed in today and Sweetie was there. Training a new team member. Poor love. Trying to sell someone a phone. Almost went up and suggested the cheapy Telstra number because it does everything an iPhone can do, but decided against it. The chap looked like he settle for an upper range Nokia anyway.

Saw a Lovely Lass who went and got my brand spanking new jebusPhone! That’s right! Not resurrected but regenerated! New IMEI and all. And all they did was try and do a software restore and when that didn’t work they just replaced. I could have told them that a stoopid software restore was not going to work as I had already tried that. But the thing that clinched it- Lovely Lass handed it to me and said ‘Wow, you must be glad to get this back, how could anyone cope without it?’ She knew what I had been through. I handed back the loan phone and told her I hadn’t used it because I had another one lying around the house that was older but more advanced. She smiled.

The sad thing is that Lovely Lass will probably get a much better job soon and leave Telstra, whilst Sweetie will be stuck there forever. Perhaps that is punishment enough!

Poor Sweetie. She was the poor bugger who copped me at the Telstra Shop today when my jebusPhone had not risen on the third day.

On Friday, my phone froze mid call (it was in my locker at work and I was not there to answer it) and I had to force it to restart (menu and power button for 10 seconds if ever you need it!) Forgot to sync it to the computer that night, but thought nothing of it.

Saturday though it decided to act funny! Kept asking me for my SIM pin and then restarting without being asked to. Then I noticed there was no reception. Tried turning it off, nothing happened so I force quit it again. It told me to plug it into iTunes. So I did and it told me it was terminal and I should take it to my nearest Apple shop.

So I got online and tweeted what I should do and was told to put it in DFU mode to restore it. So I did (by holding down the menu button and plugging it into iTunes. It appeared ok for a while in that it synced again and downloaded apps. Then it asked for my SIM pin again. And it told me to plug it into iTunes. iTunes told me it was not able to restore, so I did the DFU thing again and got nothing. Zip, zippo, zilch.

Went to the MacTalk forums and was basically told it seemed terminal. First thing today I was at the local Apple repair agent. No- they could do nothing- I had to go to Telstra. Was told to push for a new iPhone though.

Off to Telstra where poor Sweetie comes into it. She told me it had to be sent away and could be away for up to 6 weeks. 6 WEEKS! I almost hit the roof. She then told me it might be back in 2, but it could take up to 6 weeks. 6 WEEKS! I think I looked like I had been shot! She assured me she would give me a loan phone, but it wouldn’t be an iPhone.

So she produces one of these:

A used pre-paid phone that costs $129 outright. But it does have these features:

• Next G mobile
• 1.3 megapixel camera
• Video Calling
• 262K colour display
• Bluetooth
• Next G ready

Got that- it is a Next G phone. It says so on the website.

Then poor Sweetie clinched it. I told her that if my phone was away for more than 2 weeks I would want a credit on my bill for all the things this phone didn’t do that my jebusPhone does. Her reply was that this phone could do everything my iPhone can.

OK, sweet, sweet child,let me enlighten you!

1. The iPhone syncs to my computer. It contains my calendar and lets me access my email on the run. The Telstra 256 does not.
2. The iPhone has a GPS thingy built into it. Using Next G technology (you know that stuff you are always sprouting off about at Telstra) I can access maps and get directions as to where I am going. Can’t do that on on the Telstra 256.
3. I have downloaded 31 applications from the iTunes store. Perhaps if it were the Telstra iTunes store you would care. I can’t see the BOM weather radar on the Telstra 256 or upload pictures directly to Flickr or use a lightsaber.
4. You know music, well I can listen to it on my iPhone! I know! Who would have thunk it! It syncs to iTunes and I have some of my favourites on there. I can even access iTunes and through the meager downloads I pay megabucks for each month download music.
5. Then there are the little things- like threaded SMSs- They rock!

So Sweetie, I’m sorry but perhaps you need to find out some more about the iPhone. Just think of your commission if you can get customers onto iPhones and not Telstra 256s. Oh and also, you are going to get sick of me bugging you asking if it is back yet.

*I was going to call poor Sweetie by name, but figured I might embarrass the poor child, more than her parents who named her after the surname of a cricketer turned TV presenter, or US singer who wants to dance with somebody…

Yes, I did it! I managed to get an iPhone! And after all this time s/he is yet to be named! At the moment it is called Fifikins’s jebusPhone but I do think it needs a better name… Ideas gleefully accepted!

I’ve had it for 9 days and used 60.4MB of data. This is my main worry- I know it will be hard to keep under the 150MB/month plan I am on. I think tripping to the food court whilst at work and using the free wifi might be the go to helping alleviate this. I also need to remember that I have just spent 7 days straight at work, including 2 days off and they have all been full days so usage may be a little skewed. But I am monitoring it.

Now some observations and comments:

• I totally <3 the threaded SMS function! Now I can follow conversations with different people simultaneously and not have to scroll back through messages to find their last message, then change folders to see my reply and then finally see what is happening! You know this is possibly the most exciting bit I have found so far! I know… small things amuse small minds, but still! Now I can keep conversations going with MIML™, Mum and various other people with whom I am in regular contact and have less blonde moments where I am trying to work out what the conversation is about!
• The battery… Sigh. I had one evening where it died on me. Now I did spent both breaks and lunch at work on it (maybe an hour total) plus a couple of calls and a few texts but still I was a little disappointed in the battery life or lack thereof. Since this time I have not had similar issues. I am trying to be less touchy feely with it and it seems to be working! Now to see how it holds up when I put some music on it.
• There are some way cool applications out there. I am most attached to both Twitterrific and the Facebook app and the kids love Flashlight and myLite. I used ShoZu to upload a photo to flickr last weekend and Tris (kinda like tetris!) caused a big discussion with Imogen as to how you could actually play a game when you never win and it only ends when you lose. Actually this was a very interesting conversation and perhaps a topic of another post on here!

• I love having everything, especially my calendar and contacts synced with my computer. I am using my calendar a lot more and may start taking note of it. I have had Gee’s birthday staring at me all week and yet I am yet to post her card! Doh! One of these years I’ll be on time! I am planning on experimenting more with menu planning and shopping lists which should also help me be more organised! I used to menu plan down to the last potato for the week and need to get back towards that sort of budgeting. Having it backed up on my computer (and then on my time machine) means that Ceiling Cat forbid I lose my phone I won’t lose everything.
• I alternate between having my lunch with the young uns at work and the more mature people. I can’t stand Dr Phil and if he is on in the lunchroom I refuse to sit and watch so I sit in the other area. It has been really interesting to see the reactions of colleagues though. One younger colleague told me he didn’t think he would make use of his phone because all he does is text and no one sends him emails. So I showed him the threaded texts and he was impressed! Other more mature colleagues were amazed on Monday when I showed them Richard Giles’s photos from the Beijing Closing Ceremony. Then told them I had some of my own photos on there, showed them and told them how they could use it as a brag book utilising online photo sharing or by simply storing photos on their phone.

• I have not had much success with the maps and this is something I will investigate in the near future. It may be just where I live. If I stand out on the front verandah and poke my tongue the right way then sometimes I have some luck, but not all the time. So the GPS thingy is not something I will be relying on! Well at least not in Cairns!

Oh and the pricing and plans? Yeah, the guy in the Telstra shop confirmed the loophole I have found! Well perhaps it isn’t a loophole, but still!

I am a happy little vegemite with my jebusPhone. I am looking forward finding other creative ways of using it and am almost at the stage of wondering how I ever coped without it!