Buying a Iphone as a business tool from a mobile operator is – at least in Italy – a problematic issue.
As I have personally experienced, if the devices breaks after the first, Apple granted, warranty period, you can’t do anything else but drop it in a local store, having shipped to a repair facility, and hope for the best, without being given a spare device.
The conclusion is: before subscribing a plan that includes an Iphone, do check if the mobile carrier is offering some insurance or other form of assistance (of course, at extra-cost) that doesn’t let you naked in the middle of Trafalgar Square on New Years Eve.
Here are the facts:
– On Nov. 2012 I purchased from Vodafone Italia an Iphone 5 with a 24month voice and data plan,
– The warranty is on behalf of Apple for the first 12 months, and on behalf of Vodafone for the next 12
– The battery of the phone died and I asked an official Apple centre if they could change (upon payment) the battery,
– The Apple Centre told me that since the phone is now under Vodafone warranty they can’t even touch it,
– I called Vodafone and they told me to give them the phone, with no actual idea of the time needed for the repair (to be on the safe side, it shouldn’t be less than a month) without giving me a back up phone.
That said, my option are:
– stay possibly one month waiting for the Iphone to come back. But this is impossible: it’s a work tool, so I should buy another Iphone in the meantime. Why should I care – then – to repair the first one?
– buy a new smartphone. Again, why should I repair the old one?
– change the battery on my own, losing what lasts of the warranty and risking to break it. Spend money, finally buy a new phone.
Thus, whatever the option, to solve my problem I’m supposed to buy a new Iphone just because there is no way to just change a died battery of an otherwise perfectly working device. Maybe this business strategy might work for a consumer that can just wait for the smartphone to come back from the repair garage, but it is non acceptable for a business user.