LowerTheTone.com

Wow. Its the only word I can use to sum up the experience I had with Apple following the not-so-wow experience with O2. They returned my iPhone hassle free by the Friday. So I was effectively without my phone for only 4 days.

But the story doesn’t end there. A new issue arose with the iPhone the day after I got it back. It got stuck in ‘headphone’ mode for some reason. I contacted Apple who were most apologetic. In fact they also agree to provide the replacement courtesy phone while mine was being repaired free of charge. Turns out I was able to resolve the issue without needing to send it off again but either way, it left me a positive experience despite the fact the iPhone had a potential new fault.

Lessons to be learnt O2 Ireland…

They did it again. The O2 crowd. I had to make contact with a problem. I’m a bit of an apple fan. Not a geek mind you, but I like some of their stuff. Although I have never liked the price. I ashamedly have a genuine iPhone 3G on one of the horrendous iPhone contracts. But I made the choice myself so that’s not really the issue.

I keep my phone in immaculate condition. I didn’t take insurance out on the phone because O2 wanted €15 per month for insurance compared to the usual phone insurance of a few euro that they usually charge. Taking a gamble it may be, but I have a one year warranty anyway.

Through normal operation the Silent switch on the side of the iPhone snapped off recently. Out of nowhere. I’m quite a puny chap so its not like I used brute force to do it. A few google searches later I find that this has happened to a few people around the world and many claim problems in trying to have it fixed under warranty.

I rang O2 Customer Support and they said that the switch could only have been damaged by having dropped the phone or applying some Bruce Willis type Die Hard action to it. I explained to the at-all-times-friendly customer care person that the phone is immaculate other than that. (I have it since January might add) She went on to explain the process of having to send the iPhone to O2 who then send it to Apple, and Apple might send it back unfixed etc etc. It sounded very daunting I must admit. She told me that it was best to bring the phone to an O2 Store as opposed to any other mobile stores. (presumably Carphone Warehouse?)

I made my merry way to an O2 store in Dublin to see what they will say instore. At this point I must add that I originally purchased the phone in Carphone Warehouse. The chap in the store was very friendly. As it was a Friday he recommended coming back on the Monday as they wouldn’t be sending the phone to Apple until then anyway. He reiterated much of what was told to me on the phone by the Customer Care rep. However he added the whole receipt thing. They wouldnt do anything with a receipt. (Even though they have all the details of the phone on their system) But given the whole ‘best to come back on Monday’ advice, I didn’t want to enter a debate on the receipt necessity at that point.

I left somewhat annoyed. Although the staff were friendly, I felt that they were preparing me for the worst. They made Apple sound like tyrants, in my opinion of course.

I didn’t drop the phone into Apple on the Monday. Instead, I called Apple direct. Wow. What a difference. They customer care rep made some enquires to assess if the phone had water damage, listened to my story and advised that the issue was more than likely covered by the warranty. He also sent me an email to that effect.

UPS turned up the following day with the courier box and I will have to wait for between 5 and 7 days for my phone to return. There was even an optional courtesy iPhone while my phone was being repaired for €29. While I will miss my piece of Apple, I wont miss it so bad that I need to pay €29 for courtesy phone but the option was nice.

Right so its not an end of the world experience but I felt the need to share it anyway. Perhaps I’m becoming a crankier fart in my old age. But at least I can set my video recorder to record The Late Late Show on a Friday night. Wait, I mean DVD recorder…..

So we in a fastly accelerating American made car called the Recession. There is no escaping from it now. Japan, the UK, we’re all screwed until somebody speculates that there is no longer a recession. Sure tis great gas

People are losing their jobs faster than Steve Martin became unfunny but don’t panic there are are still some things in life that are free, such as recycling. Or so I thought.

I’m relatively environmentally aware. I say relatively because if I was to do everything I’m expected to do, then I’d have to carry around a checklist of what I should and shouldn’t do. And I’m not keeping a worm farm just because John Gormley says so.

So get to the point, what am I talking about. A post December trip to the local landfill with some waste and some recycling met me with some surprising results. It seems that Local Authorities are now charging the public to recycle. The one time free service that the government rolled out at local landfill to encourage less waste is no longer free. But wait, that’s not the money shot yet!

When the employee told me this, he had a look in the car at what I had and said, “sure just throw your recyclables in with the waste, it’ll be cheaper for you”

And for shame, I did.

Judge me as you wish, we are in a recession but at least I spent my money locally rather than being “unpatriotic” and bring my waste up North…

I will never feel guilty saying it. I like Ryanair. I enjoy flying with them to most locations. I know that if I fly Ryanair I will get there on time or earlier and in one piece. The only thing I don’t like about is the mad rush for a seat/queue for boarding which reminds me of getting a bus in Dublin during the 80′s. (only they don’t smoke on the Ryanair flights!) Despite what Ryanair tell us, priority boarding doesn’t get us onboard any stress free than waiting.

Anyway, I have something nice to say so I figure what the heck, lets blog about it. I feel its only fair. I had to fly Aer Lingus twice in the past 2 weeks and both experiences were pleasant and efficient. I know, its fairly shocking and almost oxymoronical to say that.

For a start both flights were on time at both ends. (So I can’t refer to Aer Lingus as Aer Lategus for the purpose of this post). The cabin crew were very friendly and much to my surprise, fluent in English. Best part of all was I had a fry on both flights, even though one of the flights was an afternoon flight. And after eating continental breakfasts with poxy tea for some time, an airline fry with Lyon’s Tea was like a gift from Heaven.

I don’t really have anything anecdotal to add or witty to say. I still like Ryanair and I still consider Michael O’Leary to be one of the greatest Irishmen since, well take your pick. But I can’t knock Aer Lingus this time. As a result, I wont be so hesitant to select them for future flights. It was nice to have my seat already selected.

Sorry Michael

I’ve unashamedly been an O2 customer for many years. I say unashamedly, because I have had good experiences as well as bad hence why I’m still their customer. I have at times looked at their competitors as an option and even on my darkest day, O2 managed to rescue me (?) from switching.

But over the past 12 months I have had an increase in bad experiences. From their blatent disregard for non business pay monthly customers who can’t avail of offers like O2 Freedom which Speakeasy customers can, to their inability to offer free roaming to the UK, unless of course you ring and ask them for it. But they don’t give it to everyone seemingly.

I’ve been tempted to rant about O2 for some time but I was never truly pushed that far, until last week. And while my story may sound simple, it is probably the most frustrating experience I have ever had.

Cut to Monday evening, 5th January. I was happily doing my domestic chores at home when my phone was possessed by the Devil himself and lept out of my pocket into a bowl of water. It died a painful and unforgiving death. No amount of radiator or hairdryer tricks were going to save it. I was in a panic the next day as I was due to leave the country on Wednesday and needed a replacement handset. Being the technogeek that I am I needed a new iPhone. I say a new iPhone because the phone that took a water trip was an iPhone, albeit not an iPhone I purchased direct from O2, much to my pleasure I must ad.

In a moment of weakness spawned by a flurry of reply tweets on Twitter I opted for upgrading to a 3G iPhone. I was under time pressure on the Tuesday and I need to act fast with a company that could cater for me efficiently. O2 weren’t that company.

I rang the Carphone Warehouse which was closest to my place of work to see if they had an iPhone in stock and they said they hadn’t. Ok no problem. Plan B. I rang the O2 Helpdesk who gave me some upgrade advice that I wasn’t aware of and told me that the Carphone Warehouse doesn’t at present have any iPhones in stock but O2 Retail definitely do.

Great says me. I hopped in my car and made my journey to Henry Street O2 Store. The queuing system is very poor. O2 appear to have semi borrowed some ideas from Apple and implemented them pretty poorly in my opinion. After queuing with other confused customers for 5 minutes, I was served by a helpful staff member. She proceeded to tell me they had no O2 phones in stock but the Grafton Street store did and Dundrum O2 did too. (She told me this after checking her computer terminal)

I travelled by foot with flask of tea and sandwiches to Grafton Street with a wad of cash in hand and time eating into my lunch break. I arrive to the Grafton Street store to queue bigger than the queues for the shops in Newry at Christmas time. It wasn’t that there was a special offer, they were just busy. There was about 5 staff on although I wasn’t sure what 2 of them were doing and if it was customer related. While queuing for 15 minutes, the instore Speakeasy top up machine went faulty creating a new “special” queue adding to the chaos. My tummy was rumbling and I had to get back to the office.

I was eventually greeted by an employee. He proceeded to tell me that they had no iPhones in stock. In fact he told me (without checking his terminal), that the only places in Ireland I could get an iPhone at the moment were Letterkenny or Kilarney. He couldn’t give me a reason why the sister store on Henry Street told me that he did have iPhones nor why they told me Dundrum did too. But much more to my frustration he couldn’t tell me why they didn’t have a sign on the door saying “Sorry no iPhones in stock” rather than lavishing the store and store window’s with ads for the iPhone. It wouldn’t have been so bad had the queue not been so big. But after queuing in one store to queue in another to be told “sorry none in stock” and being made feel like a plonker for even suggesting buying one, I admit I had to bite my tongue leaving the store.

The story doesn’t end there though. On my sorrow filled walk back to the car park, I passed a large Carphone Warehouse Store on North Earl Street. It had an iPhone ad in the window. With a mischievous grin on my face, I went into the store to ask where their iPhones were.

I was shocked to find there was no queue. I was even more shocked to see a sign on the wall saying iPhones in stock. The employee who sold me my iPhone was equally shocked to hear that O2 were telling people that Carphone Warehouse does not have any iPhone stock at present.

I purchased an iPhone in the colour and GB size that I wanted in a swift and friendly transaction. I was even more furious with O2′s inability to communicate simple information to their customers and potential customers at that point.

But the story doesn’t end there. On checking my phone last night I discovered that O2 neglected to move my phone tariff to the iPhone tariff. Perhaps this time I will wait for them to contact me before I alert them to it. In the interim I shall enjoy carrying minutes forward, as little as they may be!

In a totally unrelated comment, I have always been confused as to why O2 use water bubbles in their marketing imagery.

Upon readying the always excellent blog by the Irish Times Conor Pope, his article today linked here, prompted me to write this article.

So we are in a recession, people are losing jobs, the government is increasing taxes, house prices are plummeting and its cheaper to buy a second hand car than a bicycle. Sign of the times? Well perhaps not.

As you can read from Conor’s article there are some questions to be asked about Tesco seemingly raising prices on some goods. However their spokesperson, Paul Cullen reminded Conor that Tesco has lowered over 9,000 prices instore this year alone. Wow says you! Maybe. How many products do Tesco sell? According to Tesco’s website, they provide in Ireland “an average of over 10,000 grocery product lines and almost 15,000 product lines in total”. However that seems quite a small number. Conor Pope commented on a figure somewhere between 35,000 but I have been unable to confirm it anywhere. So while 9,000 reductions may be good, it must be viewed in terms of total number of products and contrasted against value of increases.

Today brings another reason why business in Ireland is taking a hit. VAT. The higher VAT rate in Ireland now rises half a percent to 21.5%. However in the UK, the VAT rate has reduced to 15% leaving a whopping 6.5% difference. Time to jump in the car and drive to Northern Ireland to do the shopping? Of course, but bare in mind there is no VAT charged on many groceries in Ireland anyway! However you dont have to do much googling to see what savings can be made by going over the, um, border or whatever we call it now, and shopping in Newry etc. This thread here taken from our friends over at boards.ie highlights a large number of savings people made by shopping “abroad”. And abroad in this case, Newry is only about 60 miles from Dublin. I know personally, I will be doing most of my Christmas shopping, grocery and gifts, in Newry this week.

Is it unpatriotic? Well you could argue it on one hand, but feck it. I’m a big supporter of Irish business but when some large price variances can be seen, that loyalty all goes out the window. Even our government, in their brazen hypocritical tones and trying to push the unpatriotic card on everyone. Yet when it suits them they talk about the United Ireland when it comes to jobs, road deaths and politics.

One thing this VAT issue has demonstrated is how a concerned government deals with a recession. Gordon Brown and his crew knew what to do. In a time of sinking consumer confidence and dropping tax receipts, rather than put up VAT, which can only serve to makes consumer confidence worse, they saw the simplest solution from the get go. Decrease tax. Get people back in the shop. The British government is now benefitting from the bonus tax receipts from us Paddies traveling to a different county in “United Ireland” to reap the benefit. Perhaps Lenihan and Cowen are kicking themselves that they didnt think of it sooner. But then again they are probably too busy getting $410 haircut to give a toss.

But it doesn’t end there. We have some good news?! The LVA and VFI have come together and announced a freeze for the next 12 months on the price of alcohol. Considering many pubs already put their prices up in recent weeks, it means feck all really. If anything it is nothing more than a PR stunt. If the price of drink is already too high, freezing it for 12 months is nothing more than kicking the ghoulies off an already dead tiger. Pub trade is at the lowest is has ever been and while the LVA VFI are quick to blame everyone else they never once stop to think that the prices they charge have anything to do with it. Now I dont expect them to accept 100% responsibility but come on lads, keep off the sauce the night before you prepare your radio interviews. Take a leaf out of our friends in Northern Ireland’s book or you risk your pubs looking something like this on a Saturday night…

I could go on and give more examples, of which there are many, of where savings can be made, who is cheaper than who etc etc. But its not that cloak and dagger anymore. So here are my 3 simple tips for the Christmas:

1. Use the internet
2. Travel to Northern Ireland
3. Use your common sense!

Happy shopping.

Unfortunately Dara Ó BriaIn was too expensive to hire to do an ad for my blog so here is a picture of Santa Clause instead.

I never thought I would see the day when I would be writing about the Toy Show and not getting paid for it. But this year, I just had to.

My oh my, what a mess. Dont get me wrong, the toys were great as usual and the kiddies were all entertaining. Especially the 2 rapper kids. The kids were great. There was some dodgy acts, guitars out of tune. But you got to love the eyes wide openness of the kids. The stars of the show, and they didn’t get paid!

But for feck sake RTE, did you pass out too much mulled wine before the show to the crew? Wobbly camera work, missing WII remotes, no chair for former royalty, toys with flat batteries and kids with their back to the camera.

Where do I start? I missed Gaybo’s fatherlike figure banter. I used to enjoy his annual spiel prior to the segment on books. Not even the surprisingly pleasant Duchess of York saved the segment.

Was the show entertaining? Of course! I must have posted 100 tweets on Twitter about it during the broadcast as did many other Irish Twitters.

I had stocked up on munchies, cheap finger food, wine and hot whiskey and RTE did not disappoint, albeit for the wrong reasons.

And that sketch with Chris Rock and Ben Stiller, WTF? Hmmm. Money passed hands perhaps.

So we need someone to blame. I could only find one man ultimately responsible.

Clarke Kent.

Oh and no, Barbara wasn’t there. No doubt she was reading Wuthering Heights from the comfort of her lovely Morrison Hotel room.