The iPhone is Not a Submarine But Apple Made My Day

This morning I got up at 5am to ride up Flagstaff Mountain with a friend. Soon after I got up I dropped my iPhone in water, totally submerging it. Great. What a wonderful start to my day. Obviously this rendered the phone completely dead. Excellent. So I rode this morning with my old iPod Shuffle, so that wasn't a big deal. But I didn't have a clock so I took my wristwatch and put it in my jersey pocket.

In my second hour of riding I pulled the watch out of my jersey pocket (pockets are on the back of a bike jersey) and I dropped it on the rode. When I circled back and picked it up, I realized that one of the pins had bent and needed to be replaced. Not a big deal really as I've had this happen many times over the years. And there's a jewelry place right near the Apple Store I typically use. Still, that's strike number two for the day. I rode the third hour just waiting for the third bad thing to happen, but it never did.

I just returned from the Apple Store and I'm glad to say that I was quite happily surprised. This phone was covered under AppleCare but it doesn't cover dropping your phone in water. Matteo at the Flatirons Crossing Apple Store informed me that Apple has a policy of leniency when it comes to your first major accident with your iPhone so he was able to basically give me a get out of jail free card and save me $200 (the cost of replacing an iPhone 3GS). What a surprise!!! I was prepared to pay the cost of replacement and be on my way. So I was very pleasantly surprised.

As Matteo was filling out the necessary forms for the replacement, we chatted a bit. He asked me if I upgraded to Mac OS X Lion yet. I explained that I had not because I was speaking a conference in Portland last week and I didn't want to chance any issues with my laptop until that was done. This led him to asking me more about speaking at conferences and what I do for a living. After explaining that I'm a software engineer at VMware, his response was, 'We all love VMware Fusion!" I agreed and explained that I use it often for testing and running other operating systems on Mac OS X. He said that folks inside Apple really prefer VMware because it's so reliable, which was nice to hear.

Before leaving, I asked Matteo to help me find the AC adapter that plugs into the end of a USB cable. I left one in my hotel room in Portland last week so I needed to replace it. Unfortunately you cannot buy just the AC adapter, you must buy a new USB cable as well. But Matteo said, 'Hold on a minute, I'll be right back.' A minute later he returned with the very AC adapter I needed and said, 'Here you go, free of charge. Because you work for a cool company that we love. And I can see that you need a change of luck today." Wow! Yet another pleasant surprise!!! I think this might be a good day after all. Thanks, Matteo!