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Hostage to Apple
Got Tech Anxiety?
Nothing makes me feel more anxious and helpless these days than having a tech crisis. When one of my Apple devices stops functioning, I can feel the adrenaline, the panic rising in my chest. I was calmer when a doctor told me he saw a tumor that could be “a problem” in a scan of my brain. It proved to be benign, but I was calmer then, more accepting, than I was when my iPhone stopped working in Kansas City.
I was visiting my daughter, the night before flying home, when I plugged the charging cord into my iPhone but did not hear a ping or see a lightning bolt over the battery icon. I unplugged it and plugged it back, many times — no ping. It was 28% charged.
Everyone else in the house was sleeping, so I called Apple support. The lady I spoke with asked me to hold while she looked something up. But the battery was running down! I asked for a supervisor who might be more familiar with the problem. He was not. He said the battery had probably gone bad and I would need to replace the phone.
The phone was just over a year old, out of warranty. It had no trade-in value if it wasn’t working. And how would I get home? I needed to call an Uber to get to the airport in Kansas City, I’d have to stand in line for a paper boarding pass, and when I arrived in Denver, I’d have to call an uber to get home. I turned the phone…
