What's the fastest way to get a broken phone replaced?

Question

Summary:
What a joke. Clearly broken iPhone, but when I get to the store, no one will help me. I have to make an appointment with a "Genius" and come back later. In the meantime, no phone for me.
Anyone know the secret code to get timely help with a broken iPhone?
Details:
iPhone crashed yesterday around 5:00. Wouldn't go past Apple logo. Using the recovery mode, I have:
- Restored using my backup.
- Deleted my backup and restored to a "new phone".
- Re-downloaded and re-installed iTunes, deleted my backup, and restored to a new phone.
- Uninstalled iTunes, deleted all ipsw files, redownloaded and reinstalled iTunes and restored to a "new phone"
After each of these, the situation is the same. The phone works (albeit very slowly and unevenly) until I turn it off (off off, not standby). When I turn it back on, stuck at the apple logo again.
So now I sit at the apple store, hoping someone will miss their appointment and I can sneak in off the standby list. What a joke. I'm definitely going to have to swing by the at&t store and see about switching to a phone that has adequate support when it breaks. I love the iPhone interface, but with a complete meltdown in the first 6 weeks of ownership and the long wait to see someone to get it replaced, it's just not reliable enough as a phone (not to mention the fact that the 3G really isn't ready for primetime). Sigh.

Answer 1

Tamara wrote:
Make an appointment at the Genius Bar - http://www.apple.com/retail/geniusbar/ . You can also do it in store on any of the Macs there. It beats sitting around hopping a slot will open up.
I did both - I scheduled the earliest available appointment, but it was hours away and I needed my phone, so I tried waiting for a hour or so as well.
deggie wrote:
See my answer to your last post.
Are you some sort of VIP that I don't know about? Why should you get to just walk in and have your problem solved when others made a Genius Bar appointment and showed up for it.
I don't think I'm better than anyone else. I think anyone with a broken phone should be able to get immediate assistance. I wasn't looking for training in how to use my phone, or assistance with some obscure functionality - the freaking thing wouldn't turn all the way on and couldn't be used for it's primary purpose, that of a mobile phone.
Tenacious MC wrote:
I suppose you do the same thing when walking into a doctor's office without making an appointment and expect him to see you about your cholesterol being high? You'd go into an ER for an emergency like a broken arm but you're gonna have to wait in line just like everyone else unless it's a life-threatening condition.
See my response above. If my phone wasn't "feeling well", I could live with waiting to talk to someone. But my phone was in a persistent vegitative state and deserving of urgent care.
The one time I had a problem with my Motorola RAZR, I walked into an at&t store and the next available person helped me out (by replacing the nonfunctional phone). I didn't have to make an appointment with a special subset of the staff. I would expect Apple, the actual manufacturer (and, in my case, vendor) of the phone to at least meet the standard that at&t sets for phones they don't even manufacture.
And I hope for the sake for Apple's enterprise penetration plans that they don't share your misconception that this is just a matter of "hampering my lifestyle". It's a matter of interrupting mission critical infrastructure functionality.