Dear remgumby
It is obviously very unfortunate having a family member in hospital during the holidays, and NYE. Really so. I trust you did let Apple know this through their Apple care, and especially, a Senior Adviser. They have quite a few discretionary powers.
I also trust that you tried resets. Some, like Paikinator, have had success - or partial the least. If none of these worked for you, we will for sure refrain to post statistics if you do understand that:
- Buying any technology is like winning a lottery, except the ticket is that of an eventual dud
- Any items warranted for a year, pass that year mark, is fair game. They are engineered to work for a year with very few failures.
- A "dud" device, as you called it, can rarely, if ever be repaired by OTA releases.
- You are an infinitesimal problem in a sea of hundreds of millions of working phones.
1- Your iPhone is expected to die.
2 - It does cost a great deal of money, and hence the 8% Apple Care and x2 extra years cost is a very serious must. Did you get it and, if not, why?
3 - The very act of using them, breaks them. Eventually..
4 - You cannot fix them, but Apple, Genius bar, authorized places e.g. Best Buy, surely can if it is the battery
5 - Apple has no reason to fix it, particularly if outside warranty and due to normal wear and tear. Wrong expectation, does not match reality. You sign on that dot when clicking "I Agree". The fact that many users in their second year, outside warranty, do get a significant assistance/swap/discount from Apple is testimony to their # 1 CS rating. We can name tons of companies which never do.
All you have to do when outside, seeing people with iphones' just ask them, "Hey Is your working?"There is nearly 10/10 odds they are running iOS 10 not shutting down, and they never heard of a problem.
"We would really like Apple to acknowledge that thousands of iPhones owners through no fault of our own are now owners of a dud of a device." That is why Apple replaces up to tens of thousands iPhones a week under warranty. And why they replaced Mjolcures iPhone in Manhattan even though his iPhone was 2 year old..
"We would appreciate knowing that they ARE working on the fix right now." To the exact same length as the fix for iOS 4, 7 and 8 issues. Most of those owners, on those forums, had their phone batteries, or phones, replaced. No iOS fix repairs a "dud" device as you call it. And no, there was no iOS fix for those past years and iOSes with hardware problems.
"tossing a new battery our way is not the solution" Why not? It is for those who returned to claim success.
"the silence from Apple is making me angrier than anything else" What did Apple Sr Support advise you to do? They take calls and are generally quite understanding.
Has anyone actually SEEN an Apple acknowledgement? Any hope at all or promise of a solution?? There were several software related acknowledgements, iPhones freezing. There is also a battery replacement program for specific iPhones 6/6S, identifiable by batch and Ser #. Hundreds of millions of iPhones, yes, they know which batch matches which Ser #. Should your iPhone eventually become subject to such a recall, even if you had to pay previously, Apple would subsequently reimburse or credit your cost. Goes with recalls anywhere in NA.
"A small number of devices were affected, which is nonsense." How many? I see dozens of members posting. Even if thousands, it is still small. Even if tens of thousands still small, normal and just reality.
"It was implied once in this Forum that any negative feedback toward Apple would be censored." About 2 out of every 5 replies that I receive are quite inventive and speculative; when attempting to answer, they are gone, deleted. Very few here ever see them (I see them because the are in my mailbox emailed before being deleted in the Forum). Apple does not censor feedback, but it does delete unscientific jibrish which misleads customers away from actual troubleshooting. Censoring implies suppression of information. Speculation and wild speculation (e.g. "most iPhones are affected" etc) do not qualify as information, facts and not even as an opinion. They are pure invention.
Again, it is unfortunate that you are tied with hospital care for loved ones, but this has no bearing on the technical reality of your problem. You can reset your phone, try base-OS runs, have the battery replaced for free, or have it replaced risk-free, or have the phone replaced. These are controllable variables, within your power.
The sooner you understand that healthy devices never just shut off, with iOS 10, 10.1 and even 10.2, you will understand that the troubleshooting steps are within your hands and in your court- like other users did here- and not some iOS developper.