…Sorry, my phone crashed
I still think it’s funny that we actually say things like “sorry, my phone crashed.” When did this happen? When did our phones become complicated mobile computing devices that actually require customer support and drive us crazy with endless fiddling? I suppose this particular rant is more about how awful AT&T is at customer support. But whether it’s AT&T or the “Genius Bar” folks, it seems “do it yourself” is the theme of the day.
Over the past couple of week’s I spent at least two, probably three hours trying to figure out why my girlfriend’s iPhone apps all crash. They would start up, display a splash page for a second or so, and then drop back to the main iPhone screen. This happened to every app we tried to install.
After hours of reading other people’s accounts of the problem — apparently it’s pretty common, unfortunately — and trying out numerous solutions I finally stumbled on a fix. At least, a fix for this particular issue — based on the different threads, this problem manifests itself in different ways.
Some iPhone users have found a relatively simple solution: Delete all the iPhone apps from the phone and from iTunes, then download the apps again from the iTunes store and re-sync their phone. Alas, this is not a cure-all, and only works for some people.
Others reported success in re-authorizing their computer with the iTunes store. I tried both of these approaches, with mixed results. Even though my computer was already authorized, and iTunes told me so when I re-authorized it, some apps started to work. Unfortunately, though, not all — which was completely baffling and very frustrating. (Imagine me dancing around thinking I’d found the solution, only to find that after several hours of work I had merely reduced the problem from “completely reproducible” to “finicky and unpredictable.”)
In the end, I had a strange mix of some applications that worked on my girlfriend’s iPhone, and some that didn’t. My final last-straw solution was to delete the misbehaving apps from her iPhone, and download them directly to the iPhone (not through iTunes). This, finally, seemed to work — but now I’m afraid to touch the phone… or, more precisely, afraid to sync again. I’ve turned off application syncing, so hopefully it won’t break again. In the meantime though, Apple, I hope you are listening to tdavis312 in his Apple discussion post:
This problem continually occurs on my iPhone (along with the dropped call problem). All of the solutions presented here are for fiddlers. A phone is an appliance. Apple sold it to zillions because it is carefree. Download a sexy app and use it. Not go to a GENIUS BAR (puke) or reload, or reset, or fiddle, or or or. Some people have lives, responsibilities, and interests. This is not 1980. We have moved on beyond the Apple II. Apple needs to email us all an official workaround and apology. THEN FIX THE **** THING.
I couldn’t agree more — unfortunately, I’m afraid Apple may just not be listening. They marked the post as “archived,” and any further responses are… not allowed. (“Maybe if we ignore the problem it’ll just go away.”)
