Care to share the details? My 6S stopped working so I went to the local Genius Bar. They couldn't fix it so they gave me a new one (under AppleCare). No fuss, no muss.
That was essentially my experience, the exact same phone (6S Plus but still) but with a dramatically different outcome.
First a little background on the phone in question. That was actually a replacement to the original 6S Plus I bought about a year prior to this incident (so in 2015, I bought it when they first came out). My very first phone had this issue that where it would constantly restart itself, it got so bad that it would be every 10-15 minutes, very annoying. So I took it back to the store I bought it from, blissfully unaware of this "Genius Bar" requirement (requirement to make an appointment online first). I was informed they wouldn't be able to help me unless I made such an appointment, or waited on the waitlist (which was about an hour or maybe longer, and I wasn't even going to be guaranteed a slot even if I waited that long).
Now I'm sorry, to all Apple-philes out there but that is a ridiculous business model: if a product doesn't work and is under warranty where the warranty guarantees a replacement for events of defective manufacture, then you should be able to go into the store you bought it from and get a replacement right away or at least wait in a line and be guaranteed a replacement. You shouldn't have to make a dang appointment to have a defective product replaced in other words!
But there's no reasoning this obvious point with any Apple employee. They've been trained well. So I made such an appointment, went back 3 days later for said appointment, and got a replacement. This was after trying to work out the issue on the phone with the tech support to no avail in the interim 3 days.
So now I'm on my second phone in just as many months. But that phone I'll say lasted almost another year with no problems. But then THAT phone (the replacement) suddenly for no reason whatsoever (no trauma to it, no dunking in water or anything like that) just up and died. It was still under warranty (paid for the Apple Care Plus plan), so I knew I'd be able to get a replacement. But I also knew the "system" by then and knew I'd have to schedule a "Genius bar" appointment first.
So I tried calling tech support first seeing if that would save me a trip. Basically they couldn't do anything for me over the phone and gave me two choices. I can either go into the store (after again, making a Genius Bar appointment first) to exchange it for a new phone or, I could mail it back to Apple and they'd then send me a new phone after performing "diagnostics" on that broken one to ensure it was really broken.
So I didn't want to fool around with mailing the thing through the mail and maybe it getting lost (but read below for that fun anyway), so I went to the store, again after making a Genius Bar appointment (and I ended up having to wait a week for that).
So again, realize, I now have a brick in my possession, a worthless hunk of metal and glass, that by every reading of the Apple Care Plus plan I'm thus due a new phone! But I have to wait a week for that (really more much more of a wait but read below), instead of just going IN to a store to exchange it immediately? I mean I can certainly understand they don't want people exchanging phones for trivial reasons or if the phone can be fixed first, but for a phone that's DEAD, there should be the option of being able to go into the store and get one IMMEDIATELY! That's just how a business who cares for their customers operates. At least in my opinion.
But this is not Apple's way, evidently. So I made the stupid appointment and waited a week (a week!) for my new phone I was due anyway. But when I went to the store, again the actual store I bought the first one from (remember this is the second phone), the Genius Bar rep gave me a slightly, but significantly DIFFERENT set of options: He said I could either mail the phone in for "diagnostics" (again not an option) or I could give the one that's not working I have now up to them and they'd mail it for me for such diagnostics, but in the meantime all they would give me is a "loaner" phone.
When I asked what that meant, he told me that it would be a loaner phone that I'd give my CC info for, but I would be expected to bring that loaner phone back when the diagnostics were done and either my old phone was fixed or they were ready to give me a new one. Otherwise, if I didn't give them my CC info, and/or give them the loaner phone back, then I'd be forced to just give up my broken phone and wait for a repaired/new phone in the mail. Or if I gave my CC info and took the loaner phone, but didn't bring the loaner phone back, I would be charged for the loaner phone even IF they found that my old phone was broken through no fault of my own (which of course they eventually discovered).
So you see the screw job here? I don't know what your experience was, but I wasn't about to give my CC info for a "loaner" phone I was expected to bring back ANYWAY, to potentially be charged for something that wasn't my fault! There was no way they were getting my CC info in other words, because I didn't trust they wouldn't find some reason to blame the malfunction on me, and thus charge me for the replacement (in violation of the Apple Care Plus warranty but of course I'd never be able to prove that, I'd never be able to prove that their claim of my fault was wrong, since they would have the phone at that point not me).
So I was stuck, in a catch 22 if you will. There was one more option that I then elected to take: Give the broken phone to the Apple store, and they would mail it for me for the diagnostics. Then I would be given the repaired phone back or a new one, by mail. I elected to do that since I did NOT want to give them any CC info, but at the same time I didn't want to have to mail it myself. I figured it had the best shot of getting to where it needed to go if they mailed it and not me.
Think about that also for a minute: Why the HECK couldn't they do the required "diagnostics" there right there in the store?! I asked that very question of the hapless Genius Bar rep and he said they can do some diagnostics there but for a phone that won't even start (which was my condition) they would have to send it off to some location in Dallas to verify the diagnosis they were getting in the store. What kind of lunacy is that? It's just a dang excuse to make it as difficult as possible to exchange a broken phone for a new one, which was my right under the Apple Care Plus plan. But of course, being the greedy corporation they are, they look for ways to avoid that. Yes, they gave me a new phone already when the very first one kept starting and restarting on its own. But even that was a hassle, having to work with the tech team over the phone and in the store, that whole process took 2 weeks, it wasn't like I went to the store and got a new phone "no fuss no muss". Just as I wrote above.
So they took my phone but this is where the real drama really begins, not ends. Because to make this long post somewhat shorter, they eventually discovered that there was no reason that phone should have died (DUH), so I was due a replacement under the Apple Care Plus agreement. Note though, this "diagnostic" took over a week, another week without my phone, because it had to get to Dallas then be looked at, then decided it's broken.
Well first of all when they decided that, they never sent me an email confirming the shipment of the replacement. I had to end up calling the support line to ask "It's been over a week I haven't heard about my phone what's up?"
THEN they told me, "Oh, sorry, we should have emailed you but yeah you have been issued a new phone it's on its way". Thanks for that! Thank you Apple! You're sending me a new $800 phone in the mail and I have no way of tracking it? I didn't even know it was coming? Yeah real good customer service there (again).
But the drama STILL doesn't end there. I never got any tracking info for the phone, even though the tech line said they would send me such info, so again, after ANOTHER week, I called them to demand such information. They only told me initially it was being sent UPS, when I asked for the tracking number they said I'd be emailed that but never was. So I waited a good week for it to see if I'd ever get it, each day still calling to get it anyway but still being given the same answer ("you'll get an email with the tracking info, we don't have it in our computer"). LOL I'm sorry but that's the most incompetent answer EVER. You don't have the tracking info in your OWN computer for a package YOU sent to ME? Out-RAGEOUS!
So again, I kept calling for the tracking info never getting it for a week. Finally, got the tracking info after about 10 days, from someone who finally was able to get it from some other department (called the shipping department, I was never allowed to talk to directly). Yes, you read that right, the "shipping department" never actually talked to me, I was always going through an intermediary I reached by calling the Apple Care phone number.
Anyway, finally got the tracking info and realize, this is now a full 2 weeks after the phone was ostensibly shipped to me. I punch that tracking number into UPS's website and what do I discover? That the package has been LOST at the Baltimore distribution facility. "Lost" is more a CYA term, of course it was stolen.
Well, I won't bore you with the details of fighting with UPS about that (took them another WEEK to complete their own "investigation" into the matter), but suffice to say when I called Apple to report the "lost" phone, they told me I needed to deal with UPS directly and wait for the conclusion of their investigation into the matter. I said to Apple, "Ok that's fine they are investigating, I don't care about that, but YOU, Apple, should send me a new phone NOW, because it's not my fault it got lost by UPS/You/whoever "lost it" stole it whatever. That's not MY fault, so I shouldn't be out a phone for this reason. So you can wait for the investigation, but send me a new phone NOW".
Well they wouldn't do that, period. I demanded to speak to a supervisor at the Apple Care tech line, and when I did the supervisor told me the same thing. I need to wait for the end of the UPS investigation. When I demanded to speak to HER supervisor, she refused saying essentially she was the last person to speak to. (Are you kidding me, I was speaking to the one in charge of everything at Apple? I was about to ask her if her name was Steve Jobs but I figured I'd just get hung up on and never get my phone back).
So I waited for the investigation at UPS to be concluded, which basically took a whole week for them to just say what the original tracking number query told me all along: that the package was "lost" at the Baltimore distribution facility (which is really in Sparks MD), and there is no other information on it. They (UPS) didn't say they would foot the bill for a replacement of the package, they said nothing else.
So I went to Apple with this "conclusion", and Apple THEN said the following (after apparently taking this to their lawyers because I had to wait ANOTHER week for this response, yes it's now a full month since my phone was supposed to be shipped to me, a full FIVE WEEKS after the second one broke): They told me at this point that I'd have to prove the phone they were sending to me was mine, by providing the original purchase receipt for the phone.
Now, let this sink in. Read that last sentence in the paragraph above, again, let that sink in. Do you see the absolute, abject lunacy there? I need to prove the phone they were ALREADY SENDING TO ME (but was "lost", i.e., stolen) was in fact MINE? In what alternative universe does that "logic" make sense? Any Apple apologist want to dare try to spin that one in Apple's favor? You can't, it's insanity, pure lawyer inspired insanity.
So I said pretty much that very thing when this situation was explained to me but got a stonewall response, robotically repeating the same line: "You need to send us your original purchase receipt to get a replacement phone sent to you at this point."
Insanity. Recall, dear FRiend, the incident I described up above, where the first phone I had had the problem with restarting itself every 10 minutes a year prior to all this mess. That phone, of course, had its own serial number and IMEI (I think that's the term) number. The phone now in question, the phone that was mine that I brought to the store that started all this mess by just refusing to start all of a sudden, THAT phone had, of course, it's OWN serial/IMEI number. Well, that caused a problem again with the lawyers, well really another problem for me, because when I sent them my original receipt for the FIRST phone they said, "Wait, that's not good enough, because the serial numbers don't match on this receipt and what you sent us a month and a half ago".
Haha yeah, you're reading this right. Well, I explained what I did above to them, that the original receipt of course doesn't have the same serial number of what I sent you recently because that first phone kept restarting and I was given a new one then, and that's the one that just died! Now also note, that whole exchange (giving them the original receipt and getting an answer back, that took ANOTHER week, so now we're a full 6 weeks out without a phone, since I took mine back to the original store I bought the first one from, all of which could have been avoided if they would have just given me a new phone right then, "no fuss no muss").
So I said "Look, I don't have any receipt that shows the exchange from a year ago of my first phone for the second", and I didn't, it was the truth I didn't have such a receipt because the store I did THAT exchange in, which was the same store all along for all of these things, never sent me a receipt for that exchange!
They STILL said, "we need a receipt proving the phone was yours" (again, proving the phone they already tacitly agreed was mine by sending a replacement for that was "lost", they required I prove was mine). I said again I didn't have such a receipt the store I BROUGHT IT TO should have such a receipt YOU get that from them it's not MY job to get what YOU should have already in your own computer system! You need to send me a new phone NOW and get whatever receipt you "need" from them!
Not good enough, again, kept getting the same line "You need to prove the phone was yours". So finally I ended up having to spend half a day on the phone with the people at that store tracking down the exchange of the first phone for the second, over a year ago. Two different people had to work on that, because apparently that receipt was archived by this point thus not readily available. BUT, they WERE indeed finally able to track down the exchange receipt showing the original serial number and the new (second) serial number on the same receipt of exchange.
So FINALLY I had what I was being asked for, which shouldn't have even been my responsibility in the first place (not by any reasonable interpretation of any warranty/shipping agreement), but I finally had it and thus sent it to Apple (the Apple Care tech center). I had to send it to them because again, as I wrote above, I was never allowed to speak to anyone in shipping directly, only to a tech team rep who then forwarded it to shipping (and this is absolutely STUPID, because at this point it's not a tech problem it's a SHIPPING problem).
But because of these additional hoops to jump through and because of time off that particular individuals in charge of my case, it took another 2 weeks to sort all of that above out. So now, 8 weeks, TWO MONTHS since my phone broke, through no fault of my own, that I had to surrender to avoid giving CC info for a "loaner" I'd have to bring back anyway, 2 months I'm out of a phone I paid just over $1000 for (including this "wonderful" Apple Care Plus warranty extension, which I paid to precisely avoid situations just like this). Two months it took for Apple to finally agree to send another phone because the replacement (that again they should have just given me in the store if they really cared about their customers) got lost through no fault of my own.
Well they did, and when they did, I said "Look with the problems with the last shipment, why can't I just go to the store and get another one at this point", they wouldn't let me do that, even after I proved what they were sending me anyway was mine, they wouldn't let me go to an Apple Store to pick up another to avoid the next one getting "lost" (i.e. stolen) again. No, I had to wait again for it to be shipped.
This time they shipped it via FedEx and had a tracking number they provided right away. I had to end up taking a half day from work to ensure I was home when it arrived because it wasn't allowed to go to a FedEx sorting facility for me to go pick up. But that was fine, ultimately, because I ultimately got it delivered to my hands. Again, a full 2 months after this entire nightmare of "customer service" started.
So I dare any Apple lover try and defend that sorry excuse for "customer service". I don't know why I received the treatment I did and you got what I think SHOULD be done, which is to issue a new phone IMMEDIATELY, IN the store when a broken one is taken in that's under warranty. THAT'S what should be done, not the comedy of errors that was on full display for me and my case. I'll never be convinced though mine is just an aberration, you can find similar stories online of people being screwed out of their phones when Apple decides, apparently at random and on a whim, that the fault of defect lies with the consumer and not them. And given the treatment I received from Apple Care, it seems to me that it's policy rather than incompetence to look for ways to deny people replacements for defective products by Apple.
Maybe I should have written to Jobs as PIF said earlier upthread all along. I doubt I would have gotten any satisfaction though (despite the fact he was quite sick by the time all this was happening). It seems Apple has grown way beyond caring about their customers, and now looks at them as someone who should simply shut up and take whatever decision Apple makes about anything.
Unfortunately, as I wrote in the post to which you replied, I can't think of any other phone that's better technologically speaking for the reasons I stated in that post. But Heaven help you if anything goes wrong with anything you buy from Apple. You might as well just give up hoping to be satisfied by anything they'll do for you (or more precisely WON'T do for you). In my experience at least.