Wow, this was quite a day!
I didn't sleep last night, so I finally fell asleep sometime after sunrise. I got a couple of calls from the realtor that he had two new showings for my mum's house. That's great news. If it could be sold quickly, I could finish fixing, painting, etc. my house and sell it also, and be on my way to somewhere else.
Not long after the last call, I tried to connect to the internet with the computer and it didn't work through the cable, so I turned on WiFi and it was fine. The next time I went to use it, nothing. It seemed to be powered off and wouldn't return to normal. I tried pressing buttons and thought that I had even done the hard reset, but by that time, I was a bit panicked. In almost 20 years, I've never had an Apple product fail like that.
I drove to the Sprint store. These people are amazing and helpful, and they were willing to replace the phone, even though AppleCare is the contract and not Sprint's Total Equipment Plan. The "Lead Salesperson" noticed that it was a 32 GB model and said that they didn't have one. My next choice was to drive 50+ miles to the nearest Apple store, without a working phone. I geared up at home and headed toward the Kenwood section of Cincinnati, Ohio. Traffic wasn't bad until I reached I-275 and it was momentous, as it was around 17:25/5:25 p.m., also known as rush hour. Why don't people go quickly during rush hour? They go more slowly.
Add to this that I could not remember which direction on I-71 to go, so after a rather long wait between U.S. 127 to I-75 and I-75 to I-71, I went north. "Ummm, I don't recognise any of this." I was thinking to myself. When I saw signs for Kings Island amusement park, I knew that I was in trouble, as the destination was about 20 miles in the other direction. Oops.
Once righted, I slowly passed I-275 again and passed state road 126/Ronald Reagan Highway, and found Kenwood Towne Centre, the mall that contains the Apple store, and more. When I finally arrived at the store it was around 6:30 p.m./18:30, an hour later, just for being confused. Of course, I should have just used the GPS application on my phone, yes?
The store was packed, and this was Thursday evening. "Are they having special sales?" I thought. In any case, a helpful John got me an appointment at the Genius Bar for roughly 30 minutes away. I mentioned that I hoped it wasn't an id10t error and he laughed, as user errors are too common. I was asked to wait by the iMac section since it was less crowded.
I was looking forward and noticed a "customer setup" section, where apparently, they help you get started with your new equipment, hopefully at no extra charge. Some woman mouthed some words at me and I really did not understand. I looked away and noticed that she was looking right at me, and she stuck out her tongue at me. Weird. About 15 minutes after my appointment was supposed to begin, that same woman came over to one of the iMacs in front of me and started playing with it. If she disliked me so much or thought that I was some sort of rapist, why would she come closer to me?
Another 10 minutes or so transpired, and someone from the Genius Bar came over to talk to me. We discussed the problem, and he managed to do a hard reset, which I apparently did not do correctly. Oops. 50+ miles and a simple fix? I explained to him about problems with the cable, and anything else that had happened since I got it. He ran diagnostics over WiFi--wow! It didn't show much of anything, which is good. He mentioned that I should clear the multi-tasking app list from time to time to avoid this type of situation, as some apps won't let go and run frequently to check for input, even input from GPS. In any case, I knew about this somewhat, and I had cleared them occasionally.
What I didn't know about the multi-tasking list was that it was persistent across re-boots. So, if you do the power off/power on cycle, everything will still be there. Considering that the device had been re-booting by itself occasionally, and I had performed a power cycle all too frequently, I expected to be safe and I wasn't. So, eventually, it was an id10t error. Oops.
So, my phone is working, as expected, although I'm a bit surprised that it would completely freeze and not even be able to charge, but that's Apple. I've had problems with their virtual memory techniques in Mac OS X, so why not iOS also? I can't wait until iOS 5.2.2 or some such version that will be stable, and I'll remember to clear the multi-tasking list from time to time. Oops.
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