Solved Unhappy with my iPhone

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GrahamKnott

PCHF Member
Nov 16, 2016
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Warning: this concerns continuing issues I'm having with my SE iPhone. But I need to start at the beginning. Soon after I purchased the phone I registered it with the Apple Support Community, using my laptop. Fine, except I forgot to save the computer-generated password. Hands up, my fault. So upon attempting to sign in the second time I requested a link to be sent my email address enabling me to change the password. This is when things turned seriously weird. The moment I selected this option I received a screen message indicating that the forum's registry didn't recognise my email address. . . duh? Now I've had this address for over two decades, and I use it all the time. So I had another go, this time using my backup email address instead, but straight off the blocks the registry failed to recognise that one as well.

Now whether there's a connection with what I'm about to relate, I'm not savvy enough to say for sure, but here goes. Having in the meantime managed to secure my Apple ID for the phone, I saw that while the phone has no problems downloading the inbox belonging to my first email address, just as with the Apple community forum it fails to recognise the email address itself (!) It does, on the other hand, recognise my second email address - indeed Apple routinely sends password prompts to it, which is validation enough, one would think. Yet here's the rub: whenever I use the phone to download items from its linked Apple store, yes, it flags up my second email address as a screen prompt, yet it fails to recognise its corresponding password. Now that password could be carved in stone, such is its cryptographic accuracy. I know this for a fact, if only because I needed to use it (indeed depend upon it) after having a new OS installed on my laptop recently. It worked then, so why not now?

So to conclude, what the devil is going on? This is my first encounter with an iPhone, and all in all I feel deeply disenchanted with it. True, I'm far more familiar with Microsoft products - my first desktop being a 486 purchased back in 1993. Yet I chose the iPhone in part because of its build quality (which is impressive) and its reputed ease of use. Well, after what I've been through this last week, I can only beg to differ on that last point. Indeed, just about every encounter I've had with Apple thus far, including its so-called support community, has only served to deepen my dislike of the company. The upshot is that I'm now thinking of cutting my losses by selling the iPhone and going for an Android. I know this is swimming against the tide, but honestly, after what I've been through, what other choice is there?

And yet the better part of me still wants to keep the iPhone - I hate being a quitter, after all. So what do I do?

I apologise for this lengthy bleat.

PS. Update: I've just checked the phone again and discovered that the Settings icon has now gone for a walkabout. It's no longer on the home screen. Sigh. . . :oops:
 
GrahamKnott said:
The upshot is that I'm now thinking of cutting my losses by selling the iPhone and going for an Android.
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Why not exchange it for the phone that you want. Return it back to the company you purchase it form.

Maybe a fried and or family member can sit with you and help get it set up to you satisfaction.

We can defiantly assist with some of the issue you may be having.

There will still be a learning curve with Android as there is with the iOS.
 
no malice Graham, but it may be what I call a PICNIC problem - Problem In Chair Not In Computer. ;)
getting a friend, neighbour, family, or work colleague with skin in the game may help.

also, how far is your nearest Apple Store - those blue shirted staffers at the Genius Bar should set you straight.
 
Yes, the Apple store option has already been suggested to me, but thanks for the reminder anyway, and I'll take it up asap - right now it's a bank holiday weekend here in the UK. Meanwhile I'm scouring the net for a (basic) manual or primer of some kind, something that explains the various symbols, icons etc. It's a bit like learning a foreign language, except I'm still at the elementary Apple-English phrasebook stage, I guess.
 
PS. Just to add that I've now ordered a copy of "Apple iPhone for Seniors" from Amazon. Hopefully that'll do the trick. :)
 
I would like to say nearly all of them, but that would be an exaggeration, though not wildly so. Likewise some of the terminology continues to perplex, ditto menu options and how these options link up with one another. It's a different corporate structure, that's all. Meanwhile the heavy weather the phone has made of my email addresses shows no sign of going away just yet. Even so, I have now managed (by some means) to respond to a friend's text message. That's real progress. Otherwise everything still feels very alien.
 
Hi Bruce,

Well, this is how matters stand at present:

(1) The phone still refuses to recognise my primary Chrome email address & password.

(2) Yet despite this it allows me full access to the above address's email inbox.

(3) The phone meanwhile continues to recognise my second (Chrome) email address.

(4) Nevertheless, while recognising this second email address, it still will not recognise its password.

Several issues result from (3) and (4). One is that the second email address's sole function is to enable me to access the account I have with eBay. For any number of reasons I would wish the phone to privilege my primary email address over the second one. The former in other words should be the default one. Secondly, because the phone doesn't recognise my second email address's password (4) means I can't use it to download any number of apps. An example: I tap on Media & Purchases. This links to View Account, which in turn brings up my second email address, and with it the need to key in its password. This is where everything grinds to a halt. . .

I have visited my local Apple store, but without any luck, I'm afraid. The staff there explained to me that they could do nothing to rectify the above problems because these are essentially email address/password issues. I accept that, but it means I'm now completely stuck. The only real option left is to return the phone to the online provider I purshased it from and get my money back. Should that be the case then all I can say is that in the light of everything that has happened, I will never buy anything ever again from Apple. I had neutral views about Apple before, but not any longer. The only (cold) comfort I can draw from this farrago is that this post I started here may at least serve as a cautionary tale for anyone else thinking of purchasing an iPhone. To this I might add: buyer beware.
 
might sound crazy but have you considered wiping the phone and starting again. (especially if you are thinking of returning it anyway)
for whatever reason, the stuff you want to do should be doable, so I'm wondering with all the initial setup issues you were having if something has been setup not quite right.

and now you have a AppleID and know the system a little better, attempt #2 may flow more freely for you.
 
Well, finally I managed to resolve the Apple ID holdup once and for all. In the end I went online (via my laptop) and did it on Apple's website. Since then my next-door neighbour and a good mate of mine (who just so happens to have an earlier version of the same SE iPhone) has put me through a couple of lengthy tutorials on how to use it. It's made all the difference, I don't mind saying. He himself swears by Apple products, and being a builder himself, his own phone (complete with multi-cracked screen and numerous dings) is itself a testament on how rugged iPhones can be, given that kind of duress - to which I can personally attest, being a one-time building site worker myself. Saying that, I'm still on a learning curve, but at least it's no longer a vertical wall. So, many thanks for the input. It's kept me going, stopped me from throwing in the towel too soon and returning the phone to its provider, assuming that was always possible, of course. So. . . onwards and onwards. :)
 
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