We'll just swap that out.

I borrowed Q's iPhone two days ago and realized that the button felt different. Mine was sorta stiff; it didn't click and you had to squeeze the iPhone in order to get the button to register. I just figured that was how it was until I tried Q's phone.

I went into the apple store and gave it to one of the folks there. "Does this feel right to you?" I asked.
"No, man, that's weird." came the reply. "Here, try mine." He pulled a phone out of his holster and handed it to me. Nice easy loose 'click' every time I hit the button. SO much nicer. "Come on back here, let's see what we can do."

He led me to the back of the store and one of the folks at the Genius bar was available. "Yeah, that's pretty broken." he confirmed. "We'll just swap that out. Do you have time to stick around for a bit? I'll get you a new phone."

30 minutes later (it took a while to register and restore the phone from the backup on my laptop) I left the store with a replacement. No mailing it here or there, no questions, no hassle. I signed one form that said I had replaced it and that was that.

I'm impressed. Thanks, Apple.

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There's a flip side to this story. It was a slow night; the store was empty and employees were wandering looking for someone to help. Despite the lack of a crowd, while I was there, two other folks came up to the genius bar with issues with their iPhone. For one person, nobody could hear him talk. The other couldn't charge her phone. It seems they're replacing a lot of these phones. I wonder how many phones they swap out on a busy day?!