Warranty claim for a 3GS with a broken contract possible?

Hey guys, not sure what to do here. I took my iPhone out of its silicon case to clean it the other day and noticed a small crack forming on the side of the phone by the silent/vibrate switch. Knowing full well that I've babied my iPhone since I got it and that it's never been dropped I knew something odd was going on. So I searched online and found that this is a somewhat common defect in these phones.. Quite sad for a device that cost me over $500 after all activation / bills / termination fees etc... I'm really missing that solid feel of the metal case on my old iPhone 2G right about now.

Well, it is my understanding that Apple is willing to swap out a phone with this defect for a new one, but here's the problem I'm afraid I'm going to run into. I terminated my contract with AT&T a couple months ago and no longer have a valid SIM in order for the phone to be activated at the Apple Store. I purchased the phone in August and have been using it unlocked with T-Mobile since.

So my concerns are as follows:
1. How is Apple going to react when they realize my service is no longer active with AT&T?
2. How functional is the current Jailbreak/Unlock with T-Mobile? Are all functions working properly? (i.e. Push, Wifi, etc)
3. Is the only drawback with the new bootrom being that it requires a tethered jailbreak each time you restart the phone? (thats a pretty big drawback btw, but it really bothers me that I have a phone that has a crack in its case due to no fault of my own, and I'm pretty sure I could work around this for the most part)

I am fully capable of wiping the phone and restoring it to factory settings so Apple is none the smarter to its having been jailbroken, but this is the first time in the years where I've had an iPhone in which the firmware / baseband actually functioned properly with all options working and I'll be sad to see that functionality go if the new phone has issues. The combination of the old 04.26 baseband and 3.1.2 cfw on my current phone has finally fixed the random WIFI dropouts I'd had since my first iPhone with fw 2.0... That was the most frustrating problem of all and I don't want to go back to a phone that does this constantly ever again.

What would you do if you were in my situation?

1. Should I sit tight and wait for the new baseband / bootrom to be fully cracked by the Devteam? (Fingers already crossed for that to happen soon)
2. Should I be daring and order a replacement back cover off Ebay and try to swap the insides over to the new cover? (I hear this is quite the job, but I'm confident I could get it done.. On the plus side I'd be able to keep my old baseband / cfw this way but it would likely void the warranty as well)
3. Should I swap the phone out with the Apple Store right now and deal with the workarounds 'til a new fix is found?

You might be lucky with Apple/warranty. Refurb iPhones are less likely to have new bootrom. The longer you wait, the less likely you will get an old bootrom. You will get the latest baseband though.

Seems like a small defect to claim warranty over. Apple may deny you purely because the device works fine.

Unfortunately that small defect has grown about 2 mm in length in just the last couple weeks that I've been keeping an eye on it. Not sure if it's stress or heat related but the problem doesn't seem to be just sitting dormant.

When swapping out a phone under warranty at the Apple store will it always going to be a refurbished one? Really unsure about the best way to get this done or if I should do it at all. It sounds like it's a real pain getting GPS / Push / You Tube working on the newer phones and I don't have access to a legitimately activated Iphone, just an Ipod Touch..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mrblackc

Unfortunately that small defect has grown about 2 mm in length in just the last couple weeks that I've been keeping an eye on it. Not sure if it's stress or heat related but the problem doesn't seem to be just sitting dormant.

When swapping out a phone under warranty at the Apple store will it always going to be a refurbished one? Really unsure about the best way to get this done or if I should do it at all. It sounds like it's a real pain getting GPS / Push / You Tube working on the newer phones and I don't have access to a legitimately activated Iphone, just an Ipod Touch..

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You must legally get a new iPhone if you exhange it under warranty within 14 days of purchase. Otherwise you usually get a refurb iPhone but it depends very much on what stock they have in the store you go to.

You can export your push certificates using the devteam's pushfix tool called nimble before you take it in for warranty replacement. Alternatively the iPod Touch can be used to generate proper push/gps/you tube certificates.