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…

I know so many people (including my mother!) were surprised I did not get a jeebusPhone the day they were released. I thought about it but the main thing holding me back were the plans, the physical availability in Hicksville, I mean Cairns, and the network availability in this backwater tropical paradise.

In telecommunications in rural and regional Australia, monopoly is spelt T-E-L-S-T-R-A. When Vodafone received their first iPhone at work I searched for this blog and it took forever to load. Of course they don’t have access to 3G technology yet up here and browsing is at dial up speeds. Bugger that for a joke! Optus sold out of the phones early on with preference given to Optus customers so I missed out.

And heck, we all know technology changes rather quickly so the idea of signing up to a 24 month plan does not really appeal with a new jeebusPhone likely to be released in 12 months time.

So the plan was to save (I know a hard concept for me to fathom, but one I have learnt a lot about and am grasping rather well) and buy one outright and then insert my SIM card and go from there.

That was until today! I went into one of the Telstra licenced shops after hearing they were selling pre-paid phones. The poor girl didn’t know a lot about the phone and gave it to me to try and could not really point out any of the features of benefits (mental note if she applies for a job when I am interviewing!) so I pretended not to know much either. Then someone else came along and showed me YouTube videos of English Premier League Soccer. Can’t say that sold it to me, but still!

So there were none in stock but my name has been added to a list and they hope to have more next week. I did mention that I would probably pre-pay and was told that I would then miss out on the free wireless hotspots. After visiting Canberra and discovering that these are $12/hour this was a thing to consider, especially as they are at many McDonalds in the country, including food courts at shopping centres.

So I then do the dumb blonde, ‘But I think I have a few months left on my current contract.’ This is when it got interesting! I was told that as I had signed up on one plan and increased it to another plan after a few months, then if I do need to pay it out I only need to pay out the amount for which I signed my contract for. Then I was told that I may not have to pay it out as it is a little under 3 months until it runs out, but they would have to see.

So I get thinking! I know I will keep this iPhone for 12 months. I could pay the $836 (or whatever it is!) for a 16gb jeebusPhone and then extra for calls and data or I could make the system work for me. So now I can pay $399 upfront and $30/month. Of course that would not be enough for calls or data, but I will realise this after a few days and ring them and tell them I need to increase my plan! After 12 months I have to pay $360. So I get all the benefits of the iPhone, it is cheaper than a pre-pay and I can increase it to around my current spend. I am actually thinking I will just drop my current plan back a bit and add more data. Hey! I can even pay $289 upfront on the $40/month plan and then keep it for 13 months at the same cost.

Why anyone would consider signing up for 24 months on a $100 if they cannot use it as a tax deduction is almost beyond me. I do think I have found an answer though that will suit me. And it feels like I am roting the system too so that makes it even sweeter!