Today while I was using my phone (Pixel) in a perfectly ordinary way, the screen went black and soon after the phone stopped responding at all. I tried all the usual diagnostics and remedies to no avail, then took it to Google's favored repair shop. (The phone's out of warranty so that doesn't matter, but it was also the closest option and they do work on Pixels.) My hopes for a loose connection were dashed when the guy said the motherboard had failed, this is a common problem with the Pixel 5A, it can't be fixed, and I need a new phone. Oh joy...

I bought a Pixel when my previous phone decided that holding a charge is not strictly required. I chose a Pixel in part because I was tired of vendor bloatware and I wanted generic Android. That phone failed two weeks before the end of the warranty, so Google replaced it. I've had this Pixel for less than three years. And here we are again.

I've had other problems with this phone, and some with my previous Android phone too. When I inherited an iPad this summer I took it as a chance to explore iOS. Some things are certainly different, some cryptic, and some hindered by Apple's design philosophy, but it seems a reasonable option. Dani is happy with his iPhone and showed me some of the things I hadn't yet figured out. It appears that most of the apps I use have iOS versions, and I can probably find reasonable alternatives for most of the rest (Tusky I'll miss you), and not having a working phone is a problem. So I decided to change teams.

The problems came from unexpected sources.

I went to the Apple store, worked with a very helpful and clueful person there, and was making good progress when I asked where the tray for the SIM card is. No physical SIM cards; that's all digital. Ok, I said, and we transfer my phone number and stuff how? No worries; they can do that at the Apple store. I just need to open the T-Mobile app on my phone and... oh right, we'll need to do that from a computer. Off we go, I log in (I'd made sure I knew my T-Mobile password), and... 2FA. They want to send a code to my phone. The phone that can't show a code. I asked if we could maybe, just for a minute, move my SIM card to some other phone they might have lying around, but no luck. The web site had a second option, an authenticator app, which is on my phone...

I do have that app also installed on my tablet, because I worry about single points of failure. I hadn't thought to bring my tablet with me (smacks forehead) and there wasn't enough time to fetch it and still get my iPhone today, but the employee suggested that I could also buy the phone at a T-Mobile store and they'd be able to validate my identity and move the SIM card. And I'd be welcome to come back tomorrow for any setup assistance I need. I thanked the person and apologized for not getting the phone from him (he understood), and headed to the T-Mobile store.

T-Mobile's phone service has been mostly very good for us, but customer service is not their strong suit and it's been getting worse recently. (Their new CEO probably wants to close all their stores, forcing people to do everything through their crappy and oft-broken app.) I went to their store and the person said no problem, they can sell me an iPhone and move my service to it, I'll just need to use their app to... Ahem. Oh right, he said, ok we can sell you the phone, but we can't take a credit card; you'll need to pay cash. Oh really? I pointed out that the amount is over the daily limit at local ATMs, and he said I could pay a smaller amount and they'll finance it. Dubiouser and dubiouser. Somewhere in there he mentioned an "upgrade charge", I asked in what way I was upgrading my service, and he admitted that it was a service charge because they can't mark up the phone. Uh huh. At the start of the conversation, after checking my ID, he thanked me for being a customer for more than a decade, but I guess being a long-time customer doesn't actually mean anything.

I said no thanks and left. When I got home Dani said he got a text message from T-Mobile that someone on the account was making service changes, which I very much did not, so now we'll have to make sure they didn't actually do anything.

Tomorrow morning I'll go back to the Apple store with a bag of electronics -- my tablet for the authenticator app, my previous phone and its charger in case we need to move a SIM card to get a 2FA code anyway (I was able to use the phone tonight if it's plugged in), and the inherited iPad just in case that's helpful for anything because why not? I just wish I knew the name of today's helpful person so I could ask for him again. (He never said and I hadn't asked. Oops.)

Gremlins. Why did it have to be gremlins?