Eighth Port Day in Apalachicola - Waiting for a Weather Window

This blog will chronicle our (Pat and Patty Anderson's)

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAY 211 - October 28, 2017

As you might remember, Patty's original iPhone 5S sleeps with the fishes.  You wouldn't think you could spend all day trying to put a SIM card into a refurbished iPhone 5, restore from a back-up and get everything working, but that is pretty much what we did today. And we have still come up short, maybe some tech wizard out there can point us in the right direction, but more about that later.

Marc had purchased a refurbished unlocked iPhone 5S on his Amazon Prime account and we paid him for it.  He let us know when the iPhone arrived, and dropped it off the next morning! So far so good.

The iPhone has landed!

Color us naive, but we did not know it would not have a SIM card in it. We thought it would, and by some magic, T-Mobile could program the SIM remotely.  We opened the SIM card tray with a paper clip, and saw that the tray was empty.  So we ordered a T-Mobile SIM card directly from T-Mobile Customer Service.  Say what you will about how crappy T-Mobile coverage is, and their coverage is completely crappy, their customer service is excellent. You get customer service by dialing 611, and your call is routed to a call center based on your area code. Our call center was in Bellingham, 15 miles from where we live. If you have ever had to deal with a customer service call center in Bangladesh, or wherever, you will know how wonderful it is to talk to a native English speaker whom you can understand! The SIM card was free, but there was an expedited shipping charge we were delighted to pay, and the SIM card actually arrived in one day, and Marc dropped that by the boat as well.

So we punched the SIM card out of the little plastic card. Patty tried and tried to put it in the SIM tray and insert it back into the iPhone, but no she go. After turning it over multiple times and looking at it, we decided to Google "inserting SIM card in iPhone 5" and watched a YouTube video, where we learned that the iPhone 5S requires a nano SIM. This SIM, we thought, was the wrong one. The video showed how to cut down a standard SIM to the dimensions of a nano SIM, but I sure didn't want to have to do that, so back on the phone to T-Mobile customer service. Well, I ended up with egg on my face, as I was on the line with customer service, Patty noticed that she could break off the excess plastic on the SIM to get it down to nano size and fit it into the tray. So I thanked the customer service representative and said "Never mind, my wife figured it out."

Now, we have an iPhone with a T-Mobile SIM in it.  I did a restore from an iTunes backup on the Macbook. There was something not right about it.  First off, the name of the backup was "crab_queen," while Patty's iPhone has been named "Patty's iPhone" for quite awhile.  All the same, I did the restore. When she fired it up, what had been restored was all MY apps and data. Then I thought it was possible that I had done the most recent backup to the Toshiba laptop, and sure enough, there was an iTunes backup on the Toshiba named "Patty's iPhone." So I did a restore from that one, and it looked like we were there. 

Patty's new iPhone 5S

But although she could connect to WiFi and send and receive emails  with her new iPhone, she could not send or receive phone calls or texts. There is no T-Mobile cell service in Apalachicola, so I figured that could be the problem and turning on "WiFi calling" in the phone settings would fix it. That is the only way I can make or receive phone calls on my iPhone here.

So I went into the phone settings and turned on WiFi calling. Instead of turning on WiFi calling, a message pops up "Please contact customer service to turn on WiFi calling for this account." So back again to Customer Service. The first representative checked everything and said WiFi calling was enabled for all phones on our account (there are three phones, mine, Patty's and Austin's), but I tried again, and got the same message. The first representative handed me off to his "Apple specialist," who turned out to be in Missouri, which was okay, since he was a native English speaker also! This guy, however, said that WiFi calling would not work on an unlocked iPhone 5 unless it had originally been obtained from T-Mobile. I don't believe this, because my iPhone 5 was a generic unlocked iPhone purchased at a refurbished iPhone store in Savannah, and mine works just fine. It would be an amazing coincidence if my refurbished iPhone just happened to be a T-Mobile phone, but it is possible I suppose.  But an unlocked iPhone, as far as I can find, is an unlocked iPhone that should work on any network with that network's SIM card. So wizards, what say you?

So we still don't know if Patty will be able to make and receive phone calls if and when we get some place where there is T-Mobile cell coverage. 

The next set of problems I cannot really explain well, but it is related to Apple's idiotic security systems. If you make a mistake twice, your Apple ID gets "disabled for security reasons." This has, in the past, required resetting the Apple ID password. Patty has been trying to download "Word with Friends," and our Apple ID has been locked. Or it could have been been a result of something I did because I really don't understand the settings for "Name, Phone Numbers and Email," which I tried multiple times to set on Patty's phone. Apple sends a security code if you try to add a phone number, but of course Patty's iPhone never received the security code. I kept trying, and maybe THAT is why our Apple ID is locked.I was able to add her phone number to this setting on my iPhone, which did receive the security code.  This is incredibly confusing, and not explained anywhere as far as I know.  I really do not want to reset the Apple ID password, I have enough trouble remembering it anyway. Maybe it is time to move to another carrier and a non-Apple phone!  

So enough of phones for the day. We had invited Marc and Anita out to dinner at a restaurant of their choice, and they chose Up the Stairs downtown. We had a great dinner, and tried to forget our phone frustrations! Patty had a blue drink, as our friend Roger Bumgarner said, "It is very important to have a drink that matches your shirt and earr

ings!" Anita had wine, and Marc and I had much more sensible double Manhattans! The dinner was great, and so was the company and conversation!

Patty's blue mojito at Up the Stairs restaurant!

Our last thing for the day was, as always, to recheck the weather sites. Our day for crossing is now definitely Tuesday...unless that changes again tomorrow!