The Dead iPhone Lives!

Uh oh. That’s not how this is supposed to work.

I tried to fire it up again and again a few seconds after the Apple logo appeared my phone shut itself down. I felt like Sully attempting to restart his engines before landing in the Hudson.

For me it was a typical morning–meaning it started after 1:00 PM. After checking a message on the iPhone I tried to respond… and nothing! The faux keyboard was faux working. I’ve been around computers long enough to know the answer to most of life’s problems is a reboot.

I held the button at the top of the iPhone firmly until the unit had put itself to sleep. Then I pressed again watching the Apple logo appear on the screen. A few seconds later the phone went dark.

Uh oh. That’s not how this is supposed to work.

I tried to fire it up again and again a few seconds after the Apple logo appeared my phone shut itself down. I felt like Sully attempting to restart his engines before landing in the Hudson.

My expertise is tech support. Most of my friends come to me. This time it was me who was at a loss. That’s not unusual. Most tech support problems comes after an unlikely sequence of events. Specific individual problems are rare, but with an installed base in the tens of millions even rare iPhone problems are well documented.

In cases like this Google is your friend! Here’s my exact search

“iphone apple comes on then shuts down”

Google’s first return was

“iphone wont start apple logo then shuts off – Mac Forums”

Bingo!

It looked like my phone was in an endless loop. As it attempted to boot the iPhone its operating system came across a bad piece of data and gave up! This kind of circumstance shouldn’t happen but is anticipated. Apple built in a way to restore a phone like mine.

Because the iPhone has a limited set of buttons this restore requires an exact sequence of multiple presses while the phone is tethered to my PC and iTunes is running. It didn’t take long for the restore to begin–a restore which wipes the phone clean then installs the newest iPhone firmware.

My phone back hadn’t been backed up since the middle of April. Anything new I’d added since then is lost. I just put Steve Parker and Ryan Spain’s numbers in yesterday. Gonzo!

Restoring all my stuff isn’t as much a pain as it is time consuming. This will be a one to two hour procedure. Some ‘non-factory authorized’ modifications will have to be restored later in an even more tedious dance.

Adding a specific reason would be a good conclusion to this post. It’s funny. Until this very second I never wondered why it happened. Unfortunately I’ll never know. In fact the folks at Apple probably won’t know either.

The new reality of our 21st Century life is we’ve made some of our tools so complex it impossible to follow their every move. Even worse it’s impossible to anticipate their every outcome. My iPhone and the stock market have a lot in common this week.

Jon Stewart On The Oscars

My friend Farrell has already written me four or five times on this subject. The last time, attaching an article, he wrote the single word, “Ouch!”

Jon Stewart was a major disappointment at the Oscars.

I guess the good news is, he was a disappointment because he’s normally so good. The bad news is, for many people, this is their introduction – and possibly their final impression.

Tom Shales was brutal in today’s Washington Post – but Shales specializes in being brutal&#185.

It’s hard to believe that professional entertainers could have put together a show less entertaining than this year’s Oscars, hosted with a smug humorlessness by comic Jon Stewart, a sad and pale shadow of great hosts gone by.

I wonder what’s going through Stewart’s mind today? Is he having second thoughts about he approached the broadcast? Has he just tossed it off and moved back to his ‘real’ life?

&#185 – After I put this online, Farrell called and questioned my characterization of Shales.

Shales does not specialize in being brutal. He writes better than anyone on the subject of television period. He’s honest, frank. Likes TV and when he sees something good, he praises it. When he sees something bad, he’ll write and say so. And you can quote me, WeatherBoy&#153!

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