What Happens When It is 3 Weeks Past Your iPhone Warranty Expires

A year ago I upgraded my old obsolete first model iPhone to a jazzier iPhone 4S with Siri.

I liked some of the new features though I don’t use many of them, but it was a bit of a disappointment with the Siri – as you can read in this hilarious blog I published previously. She has ALWAYS let me down,  particularly when I had to detour from the freeway after this huge car wreck shut the thing down and I got lost detouring through a neighborhood. Siri was of no help whatsoever.

After one year and three weeks of owning the iPhone 4S, with the warranty expired for THREE WEEKS, (on the ONE YEAR warranty) my headphones didn’t work any more. This was disastrous as I use my headphones to talk hands-free in my car, and also when I bike our Bayou practically every day – I can listen to my play lists and take phone calls while biking if they come in.

The phone part – talking and listening – was still working for the headphones but only out of one ear. The music was no longer in stereo.  and for many songs, I could only hear instrumental parts while singing was going on in the dead earphone. (which made me remember when music was in Mono, and not in Stereo – but then again, I am a dinosaur) No, I am NOT interested in going back to Mono for music listening, particularly when most songs I downloaded are in stereo and in order to hear them properly you must have two earpieces.

I checked three other headphone sets I had at home because at first I thought it was just headphones gone bad.

Of course not because as Murphy’s Law works, and as I said above, the WARRANTY had JUST run out! Buying earphones would have been an easy and inexpensive fix. So naturally it was not something that simple.

So I went to my phone provider, who informed me it was a wasted trip because only Apple stores fix iPhones.

My husband is smart enough to know you can’t just walk up to an Apple counter and get served for a problem, so he made an appointment for me and three hours later, I was in the Apple store explaining my problem to a tech person.

The young tech person confirmed my situation by using her own headphones. One ear worked, one did not.

So sorry she said, they do not fix the jack for the earphones on these phones when they go bad. So sorry she said, the Warranty was expired and I could upgrade to a new iPhone 5s for $200. if I wanted to hear out of both ears.

I admitted I started getting testy, but asked for her supervisor. The supervisor, even younger than the tech person, came up and tried to seem as sincere as possible while telling me there is nothing she could do.She too tried to sell me a new phone.

“But I don’t want a NEW iPhone,” I protested. “I like my current one just fine, except for my contentious relationship with my Siri”

“Let me try something, ” the supervisor then said. She took the phone and returned ten minutes later. “It works now.”

Seems they blew some dust remover air device deep down the hole and cleared out the problem.

I’m back in business, $200 saved, and singing loud to my tunes while biking the Bayou.