I had this problem since the day iOS5 came out. My phone is so essential to my business that I cold not afford to wait even a few hours until it was sorted out. I went out and bought a Samsung Galaxy SII. I'm glad this has happened because it's a far superior phone. I waited until now, over two weeks later, for Apple to recognise the seriousness of the problem and come up with some kind of fix, but after doing yet another restore today, I realised that nothing has been done and nothing is going to be done about it unless I phone them up.
I bought the iPhone in the UK, but shortly before I moved out to Thailand, I had to have it replaced because the home button kept sticking. As has been said in many previous posts, this is where the problem lies. It took me over an hour on the phone to Apple in the UK, calling from Thailand. I did it through Skype which still cost me £5. Imagine how much it would have cost me if I'd have rung direct? (There are no official Apple stores in Thailand)
Apple originally denied that my iPhone had been replaced. They said that the phone I have now is the original phone I bought from Apple and that it was locked to o2 in the UK and that I would have to contact o2 to arrange for it to be unlocked (at a cost of £15). They couldn't explain to me why a phone that was bought direct from the Apple store was locked to o2. Apple don't sell locked phones from their own stores. The guy was very unhelpful and didn't seem to believe a word I was saying. All he kept saying was that he could only go on the information that was in front of him.
I eventually asked to be put through to someone more senior, which he did. In the 30 minutes or so I was on hold, I searched my gmail account and not only found my original receipt from Apple with the serial number of my original iPhone, but I also found the email from the genius bar when they replaced my iPhone, together with the job repair number, or whatever they call it.
Eventually I got through to someone more senior who initially spoke to me with the attitude that I would get no further with him than I did with the previous guy. I explained that I had now found the two emails with all the information on that he required. After giving him what he asked for it still took him over 10 minutes to match it up with his systems. Eventually he agreed that when my phone was replaced, the serial numbers were not updated in their systems. He appologised and said it was an error on the part of Apple and that I'd have to wait 48 hours before the serial numbers could be corrected, and then I would have to do another restore through iTunes.
I'm very annoyed and dissapointed at the whole situation and have lost all faith in Apple over it. Since I bought my Galaxy SII, I've only wanted the iPhone unlocked so that I can sell it in here in Thailand. (Nobody's going to buy it if it's locked to a UK carrier) Once that's done, I'm staying well clear of Apple.
