Anywho, in his book he talks about a time during one of the first Mercury test launches when a bunch of things go wrong. Essentially, the rocket only launched 4 inches into the air before it settled back down on the pad and they basically had a live rocket standing there that they had no control over. Not a big deal but the parachutes had ejected and were threatening to tip the whole structure over with any significant gust of coastal wind.
As operators all across the board started shouting out ideas (getting progressively more absurd...like, firing shotgun rounds at the rocket's fuel tank to create holes and relieve pressure-absurd), Chris Kraft, then flight director, stood up and growled this command:
"That is the first rule of flight control. If you don't know what to do, don't do anything!"
Good advice? Good advice.
So, tying this into my tragic phone dilemma, naturally, I had no idea what to do. So I didn't do anything, for 4 days, while I researched all possible options.
And what did I learn? Basically, if your iPhone gets stolen, you are not in a happy place. AT&T does not care about their customers. I talked to 3 different reps and did any of them express even a fake "I'm sorry to hear that."? Nope. Not even in the store, face to face. And the best they offered was to either sell me a cheap flip phone (with a new 2-year contract) or sell me an old iPhone for $400 (with a new 2-year contract).
If I'm signing a new contract, I want the discounted phone price, thanks.
I looked on the ad boards at work. All the iPhones had been sold. I checked online. Nothing at a good price. Tina even offered to sell me her old one. But I was frustrated and unsettled and just didn't feel like spending money.
That's when I remembered my trusty old iPhone 3GS.
(wow i'm desperate...)
It's in pretty bad shape. Like the sleep key fell out and the home button doesn't function bad shape. But I decided to give it a try. (my cheapskates just reached new lows, i know).
First, the sleep button sensor is still there, it's just hard to reach. I usually have something handy that I can press it with, but not always. And it tears at my finger so when I don't. So I taped a bended paper clip just right to the top so I can press on that instead. It's awesome[ly redneck].
Second, the home button does not function. That was a little harder to get around. But I installed iOS 5 and it has a nice little accessibility feature you can enable that floats a home button on the screen.
Settings --> General --> Accessibility --> Turn "Assistive Touch" On
Before:
After:
I got the old phone all synced again, took that piece of work into AT&T for a new sim card (where i had to wait for over half an hour), and voila! Functioning iPhone again.
It's a bit of a demotion but I'm happy I fixed the problem for now with no money out of pocket.
We'll see how long it lasts.
Moral of the story is, don't lose sight of your iPhone (or any phone for that matter), and if you're in a situation and don't know what to do, just don't do anything. Think about it for a few days.
If I'd have acted right then, I would have spent at least $400 on a new phone instead of rekindling ties with my old one.
Lame!
Have a great day :-)
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