Holy TMP! This Press Release May Save Your Phone

This iPhone is dead, right?

Its screen is cracked; its insides are showing. It's unresponsive.

Well, let me tell you the happy story of how it was brought back to life… because, in the immortal words of Arlo Guthrie, you may know somebody in a similar situation, or you may be in a similar situation.

Here’s how to protect yourself when your phone’s screen (be it iPhone or Android or Windows) is cracked and seemingly beyond repair: Get a mobile device protection plan.

I mean, pardon the commercial interruption, but there’s a great deal on something called Total Mobile Protection (TMP) that Verizon is offering until Nov. 17.

You should really check it out. NOW.

A few weeks ago, I told the story here of how I was tripped up by supernatural forces and landed on my iPhone to break my fall. Sadly, I could not revive the device, so I put it in a drawer and transferred my number to a trusty old Droid. (By the way, despite the fact that I work for Verizon, I'm not automatically given new phones... we make sure all the latest/greatest phones are made available to customers first.)

Then, by coincidence, I happened to see a draft of this press release... the press release...

Phone-saving press release

...by my Seattle-based colleague Scott Charlston. He told me he was arranging screen-repair demos in the New York area with Asurion, a company that provides insurance services for wireless devices, and that Andrew Testa, who works in the same office I do, would be happy to take my phone to see if it could be fixed.

If my phone could be fixed, anybody's phone could be fixed. I had nothing to lose. So I gave my baby to Andrew.

A few days later he tweeted these before and after photos of "Pete from Asurion," who Andrew was evidently holding captive in a suburban garage...

Unbelievably, he fixed it!

Pete from Asurion raised my iPhone from the dead!

I only hope that someday Andrew lets him out of that garage. Pete really deserves so much more than the current $29 TMP deductible.

Here's my iPhone; good as new...

...The home screen is a photo from the Grotto on the Notre Dame campus. There's a story behind that too, but that's for another blog post on another day. Some day after Notre Dame plays Miami later tonight.

Go Irish!