The whole thing stinks, imo. It amazes me, too, although that's the deal - pay $350 million and everyone quietly moves on. Makes a mockery of the bank's code of business conduct.

Which is clearly my mistake - I saw the iPhone as an Apple product but O2 as the go-to place for service issues, especially a warranty issue.

Traditional thinking; must learn to unthink :)

So what I'm getting from all your comments is two things:

1. If I'd gone to an Apple Genius bar rather than to an O2 store, I might well have left with a replacement iPhone. Instead, after a visit to O2, I'm sitting here with no iPhone and about another week of waiting still to go before I see one again.

2. A seriously increased feeling of being aggrieved about O2.

As for the Twitter contacts from @O2UKOfficial, I'm a little nonplussed. I think the PR folk are trying to see how they can engage with people in the Twitter environment. That is terrific. Yet engagement in this medium more likely than not means addressing customer service issues. And I mean addressing. PR isn't the best avenue - unless the PR person can make things happen. No indicator of that so far.

Thanks for that clarification, Rob.

It would have been totally awesome if the O2 store had been able to swap out the phone there and then. But I guess warranty claims aren't so easy to enable that without going through all sorts of procedures. And I noticed from the printout I have that all the data the O2 employees input was on an Apple site, not O2, and the new iPhone goes to the store in Reading, not direct to me, and I have to go in to pick it up.

Not the simplest or quickest of procedures from the customer viewpoint but I'm ok with it.

What would really have impressed the hell out of me would have been if the employees had been able to say "Can we provide you with a temporary phone while you wait for your replacement iPhone to arrive?"

Thanks everyone.

That's a good point re Google Friend Connect, Bernie. I'm still not wholly sure what the real value is of this service but the growth in community is impressive.

Thanks, everyone, I really appreciate your comments.

Great videos, Bryan! And audio. You, too: keep up the tinkering :)

Hmm, wonder why this reply to Mark's comment is out of sequence - I made the comment after Mark;'s so it should appear as a link to his comment, below. IntenseDebate bug.

Lol, Mark, thanks. Terrific bingo! Hope we continue connecting in 09. Love to hear more on FIR from those students of yours, too!

Happy New Year to you.