Will you return your iPhone?
If any of the thousands of people who waited in line two weeks ago at Apple and AT&T stores to purchase the iPhone have encountered buyer's remorse, Friday is deadline for a full refund.
Those who braved the iPhone lines, but aren't happy with the device, have until Friday to return for a refund.
(Credit: James Martin/CNET News.com)Both Apple and AT&T will accept iPhone returns within 14 days of purchase. If you opened the box, there's a 10 percent restocking fee, but you won't be charged the early termination fee if you also want to cancel service with AT&T. After 14 days, you can cancel your service, but you can't return the iPhone. And after 30 days, you're stuck with both the service and the iPhone.
Most iPhone users seem relatively happy with their purchases, but some might be disappointed for one reason or another. There's also sure to be some who were hoping to flip the phones on eBay or Craigslist for big bucks, or who overestimated their ability to pay the monthly data plan charges for iPhone service. Do you plan to return your iPhone? Tell us yes or no in the comments below, and why, and we'll report back next week with the results.
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Internet search, including Google, Yahoo, online advertising, and portals, as well as the evolution of mobile computing. He has written about traditional PC companies, chip manufacturers, and mobile computers, spending the last three years covering Apple. E-mail Tom. 
pissed off like me? go here:
iphonerant.com
Why am I returning my iPhone?
Its a great phone, but its just not for me. The most frustrating part for me is the syncing of music, and the fact that you cant customize anything. The fact that I couldn't download 3rd party apps was a HUGE factor also, and the lack of IM. Besides that there are small quirks like, not being able to send text messages to more than 1 person at a time (I like to SMS, I just landed to everyone who needs to know), no flash on the camera, the volume on the iPhone was relatively sad, no additional memory, and its cool, but Apple can do better.
came out.
Tell the truth--you don't really have an iPhone, you just want to
make some noise.
Sad.
In the end, it's a really pretty phone, but there is room for improvement!
1. The iTunes/iPod/iPhone combination is a far superior music synchronisation experience to the alternatives (blackberry, Nokia) you cite
2. No you can't download any 3rd party apps, but there is an avalanche of online third party apps made for the iPhone beginning to emerge. The Adobe hosted iPhoneDevCamp produced 50 apps specifically for the iPhone in a single weekend - http://www.webware.com/8301-1_109-9741196-2.html
3. Yes... some of those third party online apps are IM apps - http://www.pocketpicks.co.uk/latest/index.php/2007/07/10/jivetalk-raises-the-stakes-for-iphone-im/
4. The in ability to mass SMS is an issue... but would I return my iPhone because of that? Absolutely not. The iPhone has the most revolutionary SMS discussion threading interface ever! If you SMS a lot, then that alone is reason enough to commit to the iPhone
5. Tests indicate that the iPhone camera is superior to many of its flash endowed competitors... but, yes, the iPhone could do with a camera... definatly not reason enough to return it though. If picture quality is important to you, then get a proper digital camera with a decent resolution, flash and an image stabiliser
6. No additional memory? Show me a phone from blackberry or Nokia with as much memory as the iPhone! You can't even purchase a flash memory card with 8GB of memory!
I can't imagine anyone standing in line for a device,
that all the specifications, requirements, and limitations
were announced around world, then deciding to return it
because of what you knew behind. You'd have to be some kind of
supreme moron.
So I get it. You do not, and never have, have
one. Nice Troll. Now go back to your cave.
owned. Forget the naysayers. The battery life is excellent, the
GUI is incredible, and the software is top notch throughout. The
EDGE is slower than I would prefer, but its completely useable
with current web content. With the proliferation of WiFi in most
cities, who cares about EDGE speeds? So it costs them $200 -
$220 dollars to produce huh? Well I can't imagine the money and
man-hours it took to create the software for this thing.
Incredible. Worth every penny. The software team who designed
this thing deserve a freakin' award.
Back to my SE W810i.
I hate Apple lovers more than I hate Apple. Freaking Cult
months, staring at the apple website and sifting through blogs. It
performs exactly as promised, has a great screen and is the best
iPod yet. Any of the little things people are complaining about will
come with software updates, Apple has a good history of listening
and meeting customer needs.
return rate to amount to anything. Although I expect there will be a
ton of posers here pretending that they're unhappy iPhone owners.
There is an "I love it! I hate it!" phenomenon that is crazy.
One of the biggest for me personally was the earphone jack. Apple's provided earphones let a lot of sound escape, forcing you to play at a high volume. (There's actually clinics in my area that will replace iPod earphones with better ones for free just to prevent people from losing their hearing.) With iPhone, you're stuck with what Apple provides because of how the jack is positioned - none of my other earphones or headphone fits. For better performance, you have to buy iPhone-targetted earphones, and the ones I saw on Apple's website cost about $100.
Plus, I bought it mainly for web browsing. The Edge network was just too slow at times, and coupled with the browser frequently crashing, almost made the whole device pointless at times.
It works great as a phone, though, but I don't pay $600 for my phones.
The dude at the Apple store tried to scare me with restocking fee, which I was assured wouldn't be applied to me, and with AT&T's Termination fee, which also didn't apply, because I returned it within 10 days.
I loved having an iPod with speakers. We were barbecuing a couple of weekends ago and used the iPhone for our music.
I figured out how to save locations and driving directions on Google maps, and it's very handy when planning for a trip. (Again, this was that other weekend.)
Video playback is very nice. I downloaded a free vid from iTunes and the video quality on the iPhone screen was beautiful.
Being able to browse the web wherever you are, that's what made the early adopter price worth it (at least, when it wasn't a crawl). I was literally seconds off from snoozing at night and still browsing.
When I went back to the laptop to browse the web, I found myself wishing I can flick to scroll and use my fingers to zoom in and out.
Other gripes, minor ones:
Can't rate or comment on YouTube vids using the YouTube widget - I had to go to Safari and look for the corresponding youtube.com page for that vid.
Ringer could be louder. Much louder. The vibrate also wasn't as, uhm, vibrant. :)
The bottom line for me was, I knew I'd probably be standing in line to buy the next iPhone version. The only issue was whether it was worth it for me to have paid $600 for one year's use of iPhone 1.0 (assuming the next gen shows up in a year). So I decided to wait.
hands on it.
That sounds odd to me. The music syncing worked great for me
and almost every reviewer as well.
"...and the lack of IM"
There are at least three IM clients. I use BeeJive and it works
great.
"The fact that I couldn't download 3rd party apps was a HUGE
factor also..."
The phone has new OS never used on a phone before and has
been out a less than a month! Jobs has all but said that there
will be 3rd party apps eventually. Did you expect them to be
there the first month?
Now maybe this person really does have an IPhone and is
unhappy with it, but these comments make it seem doubtful.
there is no way I will return it back for a refund. i love my iphone
way too much......
all others who hate it, are just dumb. verizon's CEO should get fired
for making dumb comments..
disappointments even after the original release was delayed several
times. iPhone - much hype (but all of it seems to have lived up to
advance notices) and came out when they promised it. But CNET
should ask the question about Vista.
these first two weeks (including yours truly) than even bought
Vista...
Mine has already paid for itself, and then some.. the only way I'll
ever return it is if I can exchange it for a second generation iPhone.
What a slanted organization propped up by Microsoft...
True, they deceitfully push for readership with these little one or two paragraph "stories," but it looks to me like they are equal opportunity opportunists...
If MS was proping them up you would have seen negative only or NONE.
- The iPhone is awesome - No Returns
- by macisgr8 July 11, 2007 12:42 PM PDT
- All I can say is I have been using it since the day it came out and I could never go back to a piece of junk phone that is the current standard mobile phone as we know it.
- Reply to this comment
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