Apple’s $240.00 Apology Gift From Black Friday

Last Updated on August 25, 2023

On Black Friday, I drove to an Apple Store with my dad to upgrade both of our phones. He had a beaten-up iPhone 5 and I had an iPhone 6 with enough issues to warrant a post of its own. We were almost the first ones in the store, entering with a small group of other customers right when the doors opened. I immediately asked a sales representative to help with the sale. The particular iPhone model I wanted was a popular one that was selling out everywhere and I needed to make sure I got one before I left to go back to school.

After suffering through my iPhone 6’s unpredictable battery life, I made the decision to buy a Plus-sized model this time around. The Plus models have a longer battery life compared to the standard iPhones. In addition, as a blogger, having a good camera is a necessity and the iPhone 7 Plus’s dual-camera system is one of the nicest mobile cameras I have ever used. I’m not so sure it will replace my real camera but having better pictures on-the-go sure sounds nice. I ended up purchasing a matte black iPhone 7 Plus with 128GB of storage.

My dad prefers technology that is familiar. Since he already owned an Otterbox case for his iPhone 5 and he did not want any big changes, he opted to get the iPhone SE which possesses the same outer body as the iPhone 5 but has better internal specs. As a bonus, it came with a $50 Apple gift card because of the Black Friday promotion they were running.

Everything could have been all fine and dandy after that point but once we initiated the sale, pretty much everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. Now, allow me to remind you, we arrived first thing when the doors opened at 8 AM.

Apple iCloud Apology Gift

When the salesman tried to set up my dad’s iPhone SE, he couldn’t get the SIM card to connect to Verizon. The iPhone SE would be turned on and operate but it would not establish a connection with Verizon’s cell towers. No phone calls would go in or out. Simultaneously, my iPhone 7 Plus could not seem to get past a “Setting up iCloud” screen that would remain on-screen almost endlessly. Each time it appeared, we would watch it load for a bit, and then the salesman would impatiently restart the device and start the whole setup process all over again. I personally felt it just needed extra time because I have a lot of photos in iCloud but he told me that it was “not normal” to take that long. He even restored the brand new phone… which I thought was a questionable troubleshooting decision for a brand new out-of-the-box iPhone.

I anxiously awaited for the problems to be fixed because I had to be back at school at exactly 12 for my job. In addition to a long commute to school, I first had to drop my dad off at home since I drove him to the store. At around 10:45, I got anxious so we left.

My dad’s iPhone was fixed just in time (it turned out the salesman mixed up the SIM cards. (He had 5 different ones laying out on the table since he kept activating and deactivating SIM cards for whatever reason.) So after 2 hours of experimenting, my dad’s phone was finally fixed. My phone, however, was not so lucky. I left Apple with a brand new non-functioning $800.00 iPhone to supposedly replace my other non-functioning iPhone.

Fortunately, for all the trouble, the manager gave us a $50.00 black leather case, a $50.00 gray leather case, two $30.00 tempered glass screen protectors, a $30.00 2-meter long iPhone charging cable, and a $50.00 Apple Store gift card. Not so bad, after all.

Once I got back to Rutgers, I tried setting up my iPhone again on my own. The iCloud screen appeared just as it did earlier and it took about an hour to fully complete. I made use of the time by setting up my dorm room Christmas tree! I am not sure why setting up iCloud needed that much time but hey, it loaded and now my phone works so I’m happy! Plus, I got $240.00 worth of Apple stuff! 🙂

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