Most people are probably a lot more technologically savvy than me, and if you scoff at my technological ignorance it really won't hurt my feelings. I can screw up something as simple as an iTunes account so badly that it takes a genius to unscramble it and get it back to something resembling normal.
That's were
SmarterGeek comes in.
Let me explain. Briefly. The adult child that lives at home (going to school) upgraded to the iPhone 6. We use the same Apple ID ( I know, I know...) and didn't realize that in order for me to NOT receive his incoming text messages (never a good idea) we simply had to uncheck one of the devices in the settings on the phone. Before we figured that out, however, we attempted to set up a new Apple ID for him and somehow erased the original Apple ID (mine). This seems like it would be okay -- just use the new one, right?
No.
The problem got ugly when my iPad began prompting me to verify my iCloud account. My password didn't work, of course, because that Apple ID was no longer in service. I couldn't log out of it because I had to log into it in order to log out of it.
You see the problem.
The new phone was working great, but my devices were freaking out. Many of my apps were inaccessible because of this Cloud issue and of course nothing would back-up.
So I tried to fix things, we reset passwords and reset the reset passwords; we tried to go back to how it was originally, before the phone upgrade. The mess got worse and Apple disabled the account.
I vented on Facebook about how awful Apple is (and it was never Apple's fault) and my friend Rex at
SmarterGeek said, "Call me. We can fix this."
I could never have fixed it without his services. Never. We spent most of yesterday on the phone -- first so he could untangle the mess and diagnose the problem, and then we had to eventually do a conference call with Apple because the original email account had to be rescued. I couldn't have even called Apple myself because I didn't know how to tell them what the problem actually was or how to tell them what I needed. Rex anticipated a couple of issues that we were able to straighten out before they were problems.
In the end, my devices are back to normal and working fine (I think!). The kid's devices are working fine too, except that he has to delete and re-install some apps because they were purchased under a different Apple ID and now they won't work. We need to figure out a way to get his music onto his device, too, but in light of what we just went through, these seem like minor problems. He's a little out of joint about it all because a couple of his apps were gaming apps where he had attained certain "levels" (no, not Candy Crush!), and he's disgruntled about having to start over, but hey, you can't have everything. He's got a new iPhone 6, after all.
Anyway, all this is to say, if you ever need tech services, call
SmarterGeek. There isn't much he can't do, from what I can see. What I most appreciated is that throughout the whole process I was in stressed out, panic, hair-on-fire meltdown mode and Rex was very calm and not alarmed in the least, which helped me calm down a little; his confidence that he could fix this was reassuring.
So, I'm sharing this in the hope that maybe I can avert a similar mess for someone else, and if such a mess occurs, know that there is hope and someone out there who can fix the problem!
And always, always, have your own Apple ID.
