False alarm, Fine face plant

So as I described previously, I bought Cindy a new Apple Watch 3 to replace her Apple Watch 2 which had a bad digitizer.  I contacted Apple and made arrangements for their flat fee service on the Series 2 watch, figuring I could use it.  It’s not cheap at $250 but they overnight you a box that has a prepaid label in it to overnight it back.  So I followed the instructions I was given and shipped the box back late last week.

I received an email on Monday saying they had received my bad watch and that they would notify me when the repair was completed. Great, wow this is my first experience with Apple repairs, they seem to be on the ball.   Well almost exactly one hour later I got a follow up email that read as follows:

Your product arrived at our repair center, but our technicians weren’t able to process your repair request. We’re sending the product to you along with a letter that provides more information. If you have questions about the letter, feel free to Contact Apple Support to review your options. Be sure to use the same Repair ID. We apologize for any inconvenience.

WTF?  My happy mood instantly turned sour when I saw this.  In the email was a link to get more information on the Apple website.  When I did, I saw a description of “technician could not duplicate issue” which really got me pissed.  The issue was clearly evident if you spent more than 10 seconds using the device, how could they not duplicate it??  I was pissed, really pissed.  I had scenarios running through my head where the tech just wasn’t feeling like being thorough on New Years Eve and threw the watch back in the box.  I ran through how my irate rant was going to be on the phone if they did indeed send me back the same non-functional watch I sent in.

So the box returned yesterday, again with one day priority shipping.  When I got home I was prepared to be thoroughly angry and I was warming up my fingers to dial Apple’s support number to rip them a new one.  As I open the box I see what looks like a new Apple Watch box, wrapped in cellophane.  Odd, why would they put the old watch into a new box?  I open the box and there is what is clearly a brand new watch, complete with instructions. WTF, again??  Instantly my negativity swings back the other way.  So they did actually send me a new watch, which is what I expected would happen originally.

I have no idea why their communications to me were inaccurate but I was surely happy with the mistake.  I set the watch up, which I am getting familiar with since I had done it three times already.  It was nice to have it work 100% correctly with no random shakes or jitters.  It will be interesting to see how I like it.  I am most interested in the fitness tracking abilities of the watch, monitoring heart rate, steps, calories burned, and a few other things.  I have no doubt it will encourage me to get up and walk around more during the workday.

So despite taking my worst fall ever on Wednesday while riding, I am doing pretty well.  Although both of my hips hurt I am walking more or less without a limp.  The road rash is mostly on my upper right back which is an area that doesn’t see much movement unlike a knee or elbow.  I am positive that if I did not have on the degree of protection I had on my injuries would have been significantly worse.