possible-apple-ios-iphone-3gs-battery-compatibility-issue

We had two folks that contacted us today (one in Singapore and the other in Chicago), each having experienced issues with a third-party iPhone 3GS battery whilst upgrading to the newest iPhone operating system available today, iOS 4.3.3, specifically, Error 29.

Hearing this, even from just two people thus far, made us quake in our boots – we experienced a similar issue before when Apple released iOS 4.0 and blogged about it right away back then as well. We eventually figured out how to obtain new iPhone 3GS batteries that played nice with that operating system, but it was a pain in the ass to manage all of those folks that needed their recently-upgraded batteries upgraded again.

Taking one of our iPhone 3GS’ that was running an earlier iOS, we installed one of our iPhone 3GS 1200 mAh batteries, and sure enough – freakin’ Error 29. When we re-installed the old stock battery, the device worked with iOS 4.3.3.

While it is WAY too early to tell how big of an issue this is going to be, you can rest-assured that we will be on the front lines and will figure our a solution.

Until then, hold off on upgrading to iOS 4.3.3 if you have recently installed a new battery in your iPhone 3GS.

More information to follow as soon as we have something more definitive to report.

Anthony Magnabosco, Owner
Email: anthony@milliamp.com
Cell Phone: 210-787-9482

milliamp-pentalobe-screwdriver

With all the gnashing of teeth regarding Apple’s new pentalobe screws now becoming standard on all new iPhone 4′s, we thought we would put people’s minds at ease by simply giving away the damn screwdriver. You can get a new pentalobular screwdriver by heading to our website and grabbing one for yourself (limit one per customer, please).

While you are on this product page, you can grab the free tool, but if you are a serious iPhone 4 user, you may want to consider sliding up to our deluxe pentalobe screwdriver for a few bucks more. The ones we have in stock now are gold in color, and have that handy rotating end cap on the handle – something you grow to like when you work with small repairs day in and day out.

And we added this cool product option as well – if you really do not want pentalobe screws in the bottom of your iPhone 4, you can swap them out with an original Phillips-head style screws (screws and Phillips-head tool for just a buck).

A free pentalobe screwdriver – only at milliamp.com.

milliamp-pentalobe-screwdriver-free

Regards,

Anthony Magnabosco, Owner
milliamp.com

P.S. Here is that link again – share with your friends! http://tinyurl.com/free-pentalobe-screwdriver

I have a friend that once thought, as we emailed each other back and forth several years ago, that I was typing out my entire name, address, and phone number at the bottom of every response to him. What he was looking at was my signature line – that part of the email that you set once and never change.

But here at milliamp.com, we tweak it every so often.

We just did that, so next time you get an email from us, look for these aspects:

1. See who you are communicating with. First Name and First Initial of Last Name. Great to know who you are communicating with, and for people that are sending devices to us, gives you a good understanding of all the people it takes to move a device through receiving, evaluation, repair, testing, shipping, and anything else in between.

2. Our tagline reinforces what we do (in an Apple-friendly way). Note the addition of the word ‘iPad’. iPads are here to stay, and we’re going to keep fixing them.

3. You can find the toll-free number to us on our site, but for our signature line, it’s our 210 prefix number. What person who owns an iPhone really cares about long-distance phone calls these days anyways?

4. We are all over the internet, and here are many of the links to learn more about who we are and what we do. Note the “call to action” before each one.

new-milliamp-signature-line

Tell you what – email us now (service at milliamp.com) and see if for yourself!

Best regards,

Anthony Magnabosco, Owner
Milliamp LTD

We have been hard at work, developing the most detailed battery replacement kits for Apple’s iPhone 3G and 3GS, and we have just made the announcement in a planet-wide press release. The kits are super – perfect for the iPhone 3G or 3GS owner that has noticed that the battery inside their phone just ain’t lasting as long as it should.

iPhone 3G/S Batteries - Now for Self-Install

Our kits include a handy-dandy suction cup, Phillips-head screwdriver, a couple of green plastic pry tools, most-awesome printed instructions with color photographs, and of course the battery. Our 3G iPhone battery kit comes with a 1150 mAh battery, and our 3GS iPhone battery kit comes with a 1200 mAh battery. Both of our iPhone batteries play nice with iOS4.x and are guaranteed for ten years – notice any decrease in playtime during that time, let us know, and a new one will ship right out to you.

Should you get stuck during your iPhone battery replacement, let us know, and we will do our best to walk you through it.

I just can’t think of a better way for you to impress your friends, wife, kids – get one now!

Anthony Magnabosco, Owner
milliamp.com

Hey, folks!

Over the weekend, I took a nice little roadtrip with my husband west of San Antonio to go visit our delightful family for a few days. It has been three years since he had seen his little brother (who was a Marine and was shipped off to Iraq a few times), so now that the entire family was together, it was extra special. Although there’s not too much to do in the lazy little town of Menard, I was okay with relaxing, playing cards, going to the lake and playing with our cute little nephew.

Fastfoward to Monday when it was time to go home. Obviously, Texas is, well, really freakin’ hot and really freakin’ humid! After we packed up our gear and were just about to hit the road, I saw a mosquito that I wanted to get OUT of our truck immediately! Unbeknownst to me, however, I slipped and forgot that when you roll down the passenger-side window all of the way, it’s probably not going to roll back up again. Whoops. So, despite our best efforts, we came to the conclusion that the motor was shot and that there was no hope in that little window rolling up again! Guess who got to blast down I-10 doing 85mph with their hair blowing in the wind!

Fortunately, things turned out to be pretty positive and we missed the clouds of doom that were looming above and looked like they were going to dump water on us at any second. I realized I desperately needed to call my dad mid-trip so I decided that, despite the wind, I’d make do with what I had to work with! A few minutes into the conversation, I realized that my father (who I normally have to yell at for him to hear me), wasn’t having any problems hearing me! Finally, I asked him if he could hear me okay even with the wind blowing like crazy and he asked me what the heck I was talking about! Haha, needless to say, I think my new iPhone 4 just paid for itself with its new kickass noise-cancellation microphone. I was “blown away” by the fact that that he could hear me okay even with all the noise! He didn’t even know I had my window down!

Amongst many, many, many, many, many other reasons, I can’t say I’m disappointed with Apple’s new iPhone 4! Awesome display, blazin’ fast speed, efficient and smooth multi-tasking and even a sleek design to boot. Oh, and yes, I’m also INCREDIBLY happy for the upgrade in camera.

Own an iPhone 4? Did you break your new screen yet? If you did, send it over to us! We’re itchin’ to get even more fixed up and looking new again! Click this link for more information: http://www.milliamp.com/iphone-4-screen-repair.html or email us at support@milliamp.com if you have more questions!

Happy trails,

Marian

P.S. R.I.P., iPhone 3G!

Potential iPhone 3GS Battery Issue with Apple iOS4

It has just come to our attention that there may be an unforseen compatibility issue with the iPhone 3GS batteries that we have been offering to our customers, and the new iOS4 operating system that Apple has released.

We have had a customer report today (and we have been able to duplicate this in our shop) that, while upgrading his iPhone 3GS that had one of our batteries installed to the new iOS4, the update stopped midway and reported an ‘Error 29′. We have been doing some research (admittedly, very limited because this is such a new development) and it appears the update is failing because of the replacement battery. The update to iOS4 appears to work just fine if the old, original, stock battery is installed.

Now, we do not know if this is an issue that will quickly fade away with a yet-to-be-released iOS4 patch from Apple, or if this outcome was by design, but we will eventually get to the bottom of it.

As a company that prides itself on providing perfect iPhone repair products and services, learning that there could be an issue with something that we have sold, even when it is largely out of our control, is very disconcerting to us. But we also pride ourselves on transparency: we are determined to find a solution to this potential issue, communicate our findings to you as we get them, and hopefully be able to offer a solution to all of our customers in a way that is as quick and painless for all involved.

Until then, if you have had us install an iPhone 3GS battery for you, or you have purchased an iPhone 3GS battery from us and installed it yourself, please refrain from updating your iPhone 3GS to the new iOS4 operating system. If you have already done this, and encountered ‘Error 29′ and your iPhone 3GS is no longer working properly, please email us so that we can provide you with the necessary steps to reverse the iOS4 update [if this is even a feasible option at this time]. And if you have updated to iOS4 with one of our batteries installed and did not encounter any issues, please email us and let us know that as well. Email: service@milliamp.com
As far are we know, this issue does not affect 1st Generation iPhone (aka iPhone 2G) batteries, iPhone 3G batteries, or any of the other batteries that we sell.

We will be providing updates to this situation as it develops on our blog and on Twitter.

Thank you in advance for your patience during this time.

Best regards,

Anthony Magnabosco, Owner
Milliamp LTD
owner@milliamp.com
Cell Phone: 210-787-9482

6/24/2010 11:48AM Update:
We just posted a Press Release on TransWorldNews about this issue to see if it helps generate solutions. – Anthony

6/25/2010 11:23AM Update:
We have been working hard and trying all sorts of ways to restore an iPhone 3GS back from iOS4 to 3.1.3 so that at the very least an iPhone 3GS in this predicament can be functional again, but we keep encountering the dreaded Error 29 during the restore process. As soon as we have a proven solution that works, we will let you know here. -Anthony

6/26/2010 1:00PM Update:
We just posted a Press Release on PRWeb about this issue to see if it helps generate solutions. – Anthony

6/28/2010 9:23PM Update:
Well, we have received a handful of emails/calls from customers that have our iPhone 3GS battery installed and are unable to complete the update to iOS4. Interestingly, we are also receiving (and reading) reports of others that have the stock OEM iPhone 3GS battery installed with the original Apple operating system (non-jail-broken) and are also having issues upgrading to iOS4, or if they can upgrade, they are having severe battery meter drainage issues.

This suggests to us that the issue that we have reported is not entirely related to just third-party, after-market, generic iPhone 3GS batteries. There are a few rumours of a new update to iOS4, but as of today, nothing is available yet.

We did just have a customer tell us about the method that he used to downgrade his iPhone 3GS to his pre-iOS4 operating system, but we have not yet had a chance to duplicate his steps and see if it really works – we will give it a shot first thing on Tuesday. More important than a successful, temporary downgrade in OS, however, are functionality and stability. We will have to make sure the device continues to work well in 3.1.2 and 3.1.3 without freezing up, hanging, or rebooting before we can conclusively say we have a way for you to downgrade from iOS4.

As an aside, we have already put our feelers out for brand new iPhone 3GS batteries. If we can get our hands on some, we will glady change out the first battery with this new one – providing that these newbies pass our tests and work flawlessly with iOS4. Please stay tuned, and thanks for your continued patience. – Anthony

6/30/2010 12:34PM Update:
Took a few days, but we have been able to successfully communicate the exact type of iPhone 3GS battery that works with iOS4 to a couple of our suppliers. These should arrive late next week, and once they do, we will test them out to not only make sure that they work with iOS4, but will also hold a charge comparable to the original stock battery Apple installs in the iPhone 3GS. More updates to follow. – Anthony

7/7/2010 10:27PM Update:
Our first of two new battery shipments will arrive early next week. The minute they arrive, we will be pouring over them to see if they work in an iPhone 3GS with iOS4. A customer that found a new battery elsewhere brought their iPhone 3GS in – we installed it and she was able to complete the iOS4 install, so it looks like this is the correct approach. Thanks for your continued patience. – Anthony

7/12/2010 2:40PM Update:
Our first batch of new iPhone 3GS batteries arrived just a few moments ago! We expect to have the results of our tests with iOS4 with this first shipment available before the close of business Wednesday. Stay tuned. – Anthony

7/14/2010 10:34PM Update:
Sorry for not posting this a bit earlier today, but wanted to be sure of our findings. Great news. The brand new iPhone 3GS batteries we received are working great with iOS4. Details on how to get your new iPhone 3GS battery will be emailed to our customers and will then posted here before Noon Thursday. – Anthony

7/15/2010 2:24PM Update:
We were literally minutes away from blasting out an email that contained a link to the page on our site where former customers can place a new order for a free iPhone 3GS battery when we learned that Apple has just released an update to their iOS4 Operating System. We are downloading it from Apple now and expect to be able to attempt to install it on several iPhone 3GS’ running one of our batteries later this evening. Before Noon Friday we expect to be able to advise you on going forward with the new iOS4 or going through the steps of getting a new replacement battery. This is definately not a planned thing and we are not dragging our feet at all – we just want to make sure we have all of our ducks lined up before we communicate a solution to our customers. Thanks again and stay posted. – Anthony

iPhone 3GS Battery Replacement Plan

7/16/2010 9:20AM Update:
Well, iOS 4.0.1 did not play nicely with our original replacement iPhone 3GS batteries, but our new iPhone 3GS batteries worked just fine with iOS4 and iOS4.0.1, so we are moving forward with our battery replacement program.

Anyone who received an iPhone 3GS battery from us can place a new order that will start the process for getting their battery exchanged. We are not going to charge anyone for the cost of the new battery, the labor associated with swapping these batteries out, or the return shipping expense from us to you.

An email about this has just been sent to all of our customers, and we will continue to make updates regarding iOS4 and battery compatibility as we learn more about it on this specific blog post and via our Twitter account.

Thank you for your patience through all of this – it certainly was not expected, but hopefully we handled it to your satisfaction. All future sales of replacement iPhone 3GS batteries that we sell from this point on will be the new iPhone 3GS battery. – Anthony

The woman who won an iPad from milliamp.com, Pashyn Santos, posted a video of the arrival of the device and its’ unboxing on Friday. She hung out all morning outside with her video camera, tracked the package on her UPS iPhone app, and then bounded onto the street when the driver finally showed up with her package.

You can see her most-awesome video by clicking anywhere on the picture below:

ipad-winner-celebrates

We could not have found a more exciting and worthy individual to offer this challenge to than Pashyn. From the moment we saw her video where she sings about wanting an iPad we knew that, if she hit our goal of 50,000 video views, she would truly appreciate the prize. You can obviously tell from her video that her new iPad is going to get lots and lots of use.

We also had a lot of fun putting the shipment together, too. Everyone at milliamp.com signed the congratulatory card (be sure to pause her video and catch Chris’ little note!), we tossed in a red-colored silicone iPad case that we have been experimenting with on our own iPads, slipped in a few fresh milli-Wipes, put everything into one of our oh-so-secure iPad shipping boxes, and heck I couldn’t resist tracing my hand on the box right before we shipped it out as if to say “Howdy!” to Pashyn and all of her YouTube viewers that helped her reach her goal.

We would have shipped Pashyn her iPad a hell of a lot sooner, but it took Apple forever to fulfill our wait-list request!

So thanks, Pashyn, for your wonderful video (and btw great video camera work too, whoever that was!) and for just being you!

Sincerely,

Anthony and Your Friends at milliamp.com

One of the great new features of our millihub system is it’s ability to “auto-magically” generate emails to our customers as a device moves from each stage of the iPhone repair process. We have complete control over what apppears in the subject line and body of these emails, and pack them full of useful information (for example, the results of the tests we performed right after your iPod was removed from its’ packaging and received into our system).

Well, one of the most important parts of our job is to set customers’ expectations – to let you know exactly what is going on and what is likely to occur next. If we can do this effectively, we reduce phone calls, emails, and frustration from both parties.

millihub-breadcrumbs

One feature we plan on adding soon (um, Mark, um, hello?? [said like Dane Cook]) to our email notifications is actually something we noticed while purchasing a device from Apple a while back: provide a “breadcrumb trail” to show you where you have been and where you are heading next in the proces. In the case of our iPhone evaluation and iPod repair business, we can show you where you have been, where you are currently at, and where you are likely to head next.

We expect that something as simple as this will alleviate a tremendous amount of confusion and help set expectations, and that is undboutedly half the battle.

next-steps

Anthony Magnabosco, Owner
milliamp.com

I am a college kid working on getting his computer science degree (emphasis in programming), and I’ve taken a class in some introductory Java (programming language). As of now I’m in summer time mode, and I’m not really doing much programming. I wanted to polish my skills and get better, so this summer I set myself a goal to make a simple Android (popular phone UI) application. I’ve already downloaded the Android developers package, along with a couple of other things that I need. If I get good enough at doing this, I could potentially make a little bit of money (with an application people are willing to pay for). How many times do you see an application in the Apple app store for $.99, and you think to yourself to buy it since its not that expensive. What if 10,000 thought the same things, and they all bought the application. I know some of the money has to go towards time and development, but its not bad if your going to run a solo project (like me). Who knows… In the future I can even add an application of my own to the already robust Apple app store. An update on the app I’m working on (and its details) will be revealed in my next blog.

iPad Backplate Damage

The damage to the iPad backplate can be so dented that it may actually prevent the brand new iPad digitizer screen from laying correctly back inside the repaired device.

Right now, we have basically two options to offer our customers if we encounter this scenario:

1. Replace the iPad backplate with a brand new one.

2. Let us try our best to bend back the dent and then buff out the marks.

The first option results in the most desirable outcome, but it is more expensive. The second option is cheaper, and if you do not mind a backplate with a little “character”, this might be the right solution for you.

Here is a closer image of an iPad we received. The damage to the backplate looked innocuous enough, but it turned out that the dent on this corner was enought to prevent the new screen from fitting:

iPad Backplate Damage (Close-Up)

To date, just 2 out of 12 iPads we have received thus far that have fallen into this category, but that might be all the evidence one needs to run out an purchase a new protective iPad cover for their pricey device.

Anthony Magnabosco, Owner
milliamp.com