iPhone recooperation plan of attack

February 8, 2009 6:17 AM

So I dropped my iPhone. It disabled the speaker at the top of the phone so I can only make calls using speakerphone... I bought the protection plan back in December, but never activated it. Any suggestions on a plan of action?
posted by pwally to Computers & Internet (10 answers total)

AFAIK, you've got the full length of the protection plan to activate it. Do so, then call Apple Care and describe the situation. Or call Apple Care right off the bat, and they can tell you whether your protection plan is still worth anything.
posted by Picklegnome at 6:43 AM on February 8, 2009

Applecare won't cover 'accidental' abuse like this.

You get a year of protection anyway with the phone. Year of parts and labor, 90 days of phone.

All this here
posted by filmgeek at 7:08 AM on February 8, 2009

Whoops. Here
posted by filmgeek at 7:08 AM on February 8, 2009

If you don't see any visible damage, you may be able to have it replaced at the Apple Store after you've activated the plan (just play dumb: "I don't know, my speaker randomly stopped working..." If there is *any* visible damage, though, take it from me, they're good at finding it and telling you they can't replace it.

Worst case, though, I sold my first-gen iPhone on eBay with visible damage and a broken volume button (everything else worked fine) for more than I paid for a new 3G iPhone. Lots of eBayers want them for parts, especially if the screen is intact.
posted by olinerd at 8:03 AM on February 8, 2009

If there's no physical evidence of the drop (scratches, dents), I'd go ahead and activate the protection plan, then go the mail-in route for repair/replacement. Play dumb and you should be fine.

If it's obvious that it was dropped, you can still get it repaired. There's lots of ipod repair places if you don't want to go through apple.
posted by kaudio at 8:21 AM on February 8, 2009

If you're still covered by the original warranty, I'll bet if you go online to submit a replacement request, you won't have any problems. Just say the speaker stopped working when the online form asks you what happened. I've had my ipod touch replaced twice already because I'm an idiot. But so long as you haven't dropped it in water (there's a color-changing litmus paper inside the headphone jack). Seems when they receive the device, they'll check that, turn it on to verify what you said was wrong, and then ship you another one right away.
posted by lizbunny at 8:21 AM on February 8, 2009

I was able to get my Mac laptop fixed 2 years in; I'd bought AppleCare and forgotten to activate it. Agree with others that if the damage makes it visually obvious that you dropped it, that'll void the free repair, but you can still get it repaired at Apple or elsewhere.
posted by pseudostrabismus at 8:31 AM on February 8, 2009

Have you tried putting headphones in and out more than a few times? It might be that you are stuck in headphone mode, which is not uncommon. To see if you are, use the volume button just from the home screen, and the display should tell you that it's changing the ringer volume for headphone mode. Then put headphones in and out a few times, and see if the display changes.
posted by about_time at 9:45 AM on February 8, 2009

olinderd and kaudio's "play dumb" answers are suggesting that you commit criminal and civil fraud. Please don't do that. For one thing, there is a (very) small chance that you could get in serious trouble for it. For another, it makes AppleCare more expensive for the rest of us in the long run.

Also, seconding about_time's theory about headphone mode. That happened to my iPhone once and the only thing that can clear it up is inserting and removing the headphones.
posted by jedicus at 10:40 AM on February 8, 2009

I would try about_time's advice up above. My iPhone gets stuck in "headphone" mode every once in a while and his advice has fixed it about 5 times so far.
posted by sideshow at 2:46 PM on February 9, 2009