Why does it take so long for T-Mobile to replace a faulty iPhone?

I suspect that some people on Twitter must think I'm incredibly shallow. You, dear readers, already know that my tastes are a veritable cornucopia of trash, but there are limits. I made two short, entirely unrelated, tweets in quick succession, one that I was feeling sad about some news I'd heard, and secondly that my new iPhone had to go back for repair without realising that some people might understandably link them.

The sad news isn't mine to share, so will stay private. The Saga of the iPhone, however, won't.

I was contemplating leaving T-Mobile but the other day they made me an offer that I couldn't refuse so my nice shiny new iPhone arrived yesterday. There were a few problems getting it all set up, but we got there in the end. If the truth be known, the worst thing was getting the SIM card out of my Blackberry. Thankfully, though, a nice person put a video up on You Tube to show me how to do it.



Anyway, I got it just as I wanted it, with all my applications, including the F1 live timing one happily downloaded. I was very pleased to discover that you could actually download all the ones I'd paid for again - I'd expected to have to use the F1 one only on my iPod Touch but was delighted at the prospect of having it out with me - especially when I have a meeting during Monza quali on Saturday.

Then, in the middle of a therapeutic game of Flight Control after a stressful day, it went blank, up came the Apple sign and it restarted itself - and proceeded to do this every few minutes.

I tried to charge it this morning as the battery was low, but it wouldn't charge. After looking at the Apple website, it seemed that the option was to restore it. This I did, after following all of Apple's instructions. It then came up saying that it couldn't restore due to error code 29. There are other error codes which could have been easily resolved, but this one, unfortunately, is indicative of a hardware fault.

I phoned T-Mobile Customer Services expecting to be told to take it into the local shop, which is only a few minutes' drive away, and get another one. Of course it couldn't be so simple. They have to send me a bag, which will take 1-2 days. Then I have to send the broken iPhone back to them. Then they send me the replacement. So, all in all, I'll be lucky if I have the new phone before a week today.

It's not the end of the world, but I'm still not chuffed about it. I don't understand why these things can't be resolved quickly and locally. Surely the shop either has another model there or could order one in much less time. It's just unnecessary faffing about.

So, T-Mobile, you've sorted my new contract out very well for me this week, but your arrangements for sorting out and replacing faulty equipment could improve.

And as for my old iPod Touch - Anna has taken over that completely. Although when she comes home tonight, she'll discover that the Strictly app has been downloaded onto it. There's no way I could watch the launch show without it.