TRIP REPORT: The fallout of a stolen iPhone and the long road to a new device  – Taking the Long Way (and back) to Singapore

The fallout of a stolen iPhone and the long road to a new device
Taking the long way (and back) to Singapore

This is a post I don’t want to write much… but hopefully, you’ll pick up a few notes if the worst does happen when travelling.

In this adventure

• I needed a break
• 02:40 on the coach? Nothing changes, with Heathrow Terminal 5 and British Airways South Lounge
• BA776 London Heathrow to Stockholm Arlanda (Club Europe)
• An afternoon in Stockholm featuring ABBA The Museum 
• Off to Stockholm Bromma, AY840 Stockholm Bromma to Helsinki Vantaa with NoRRA (Economy Class)
• A Rapid Helsinki Transit and The Finnair Lounge
• AY099 Helsinki Vantaa to Hong Kong International with Finnair (Business Class)
• Transiting Hong Kong and Cathay Pacific’s The Pier Lounge
• CX715 (AY5855) Hong Kong International to Singapore Changi Terminal 4 with Cathay Pacific (Business Class)
• Into Singapore, IBIS Budget Crystal
• The Mercure Hotel, Bugis
• Boating around the Singapore River
• Exploring Hawker Markets and random fooding around Singapore
• The Best Camera is the One You Have With You – Exploring The Gardens by the Bay
• Up to the Marina Bay Sands Skypark…
• …and the fallout of a stolen and returned iPhone
• Back to Changi Airport the Pokemon Centre at the Jewel and Terminal 4
• 3K513 (AY6379) Singapore Changi to Bangkok Suvarnabhumi (Jetstar Asia Economy Class)
• One night in Bangkok and the Avagard Capsule Hotel, Bangkok Suvarnabhumi
• An early morning at Bangkok Suvarnabhumi and The Miracle Lounge, D Pier
• AY142 Bangkok Suvarnabhumi to Helsinki Vantaa with Finnair in Business Class
• Out of Vantaa Airport and into Helsinki… and a little beyond
• Holiday Inn, Helsinki Airport
• Early morning at Helsinki Vantaa Airport and The Finnair Schengen Lounge
• AY841 Helsinki Vantaa to Stockholm Bromma with NoRRA (Economy Class)
• The slow return to Arlanda Airport (with a military band)
• D84459 Stockholm Arlanda to London Gatwick with Norweigan Air Shuttle
• How to get home… coach or train?
• Sometimes, Simple Isn’t Needed… Or Wanted

Editors note

For context, I wrote a lot of this already in Does AppleCare+ Work Worldwide (Or at least in Singapore). This expands a lot on the hows and whats of the event, including the recovery of the device.

I’ve worked on this piece since… Stockholm if I’m honest, prototyping it and trying to be as factual as possible – however, raw emotions do take over.

Thus, while there are no swear words in the writing of this, there are many that are implied.

Onwards.

The “Oh Hell” moment (swap out the swear word of your choice)

As it was getting dark at the Marina Bay Sands I wanted to get some nice darkness photos., I noticed something when I went to reach into my trouser pocket… something was missing.

The iPhone.

Ok. Maybe it’s not so bad, and I dumped it in the rucksack to be safe. My memory is like that.

Nope Not visible.

Oh hell.

I went into some light as I needed some help at that exact moment. And to raise a note with security.

I also checked the Xiaomi wrist band which could talk to the phone. Not good, as it was out of Bluetooth range.

The words that were coming out of my mouth were… many, but controlled.

With the help of Marina Bay Sands security, there were more than a few discussions and assistance came, whilst they sorted out the police report. One member of staff kindly lent me a phone – from there I could send annoying pings and messages to the iPhone – as well as put it in lost mode, so it would be useless to anyone.

After 45 minutes, there was not much else to be done. And I wanted out of the Skypark. I was kindly let past the queue to a lift back downstairs (rather than face the lift queue), and I headed for a taxi back to the Mercure Bugis to make alternative plans and put in emergency contact contingents.

Damn. I was low at that point.

Getting into the room, I logged onto my laptop and found my Instagram messages had gone mad, with friends and people contacting me.

Apparently, a French couple had found my phone on the floor on the ground floor of the outside Marina Bay Sands and had handed it in. They showed where it was dropped off.

Had the deities smiled on me?

There was one way to find out – back to another Singapore Taxi, with my laptop in hand. Those spare Singapore Dollars were fast being used – but if it was a chance to get the phone back – I would take it.

Arriving at a concierge desk at the Mariana Bay Sands, there was a little confusion, but then I was advised to head to another one, near the river.

When I arrived at the desk, I was excited. There was also a little sadness tinged in their eyes.

Uh oh.

After confirming who I was and the locked screen message on the phone, it was handed to me.

Well. The frame was intact. The glass… Holy heck.

Taken a little later at the Apple Store, Marina Bay Sands.

You can see what state it’s in – it’s barely there. Don’t ask about the phone’s cameras….

With the staff confirming it was mine, I signed for the poor thing, thinking of the next steps. I queried and confirmed there was an Apple Store in the complex.

There were some things I needed to do before I hit the Apple Store. To start with:

• The front OLED screen was functional, but mostly broken and most of the colour had died when it tried to light up.
• The back of the phone didn’t appear to be punctured, but all the smashed glass on it didn’t help.
• And yes, broken glass for Annie Lennox to walk on

Those things are… superficial at worst.

What’s more important – are the data and security elements on the phone.  Today, a lot of us use our phones for everything – be it as a mobile wallet, a map, our camera, where we keep boarding passes, and the list goes on.

So my next worry was about the secure elements of the phone – had whoever decided to borrow it managed to compromise the secure elements of the phone? By that I mean the FaceID, PIN Code and banking apps.

I checked the banking apps and wallet —nothing had been hit or authorised, indicating whoever smashed the phone didn’t hit the secure modules.

If there was one small mercy in the world, I would take that one.

How could I recover from a smashed phone?

Now, onto the next problem – do I have to replace the iPhone in the UK – or could I get this serviced whilst I was in Singapore?

I had quietly resigned myself to get this sorted when I got home and was planning a trip to Little India or the bun fight that is Sim Lim Square to get a “temporary phone” in the morning, as well as a protective pouch to put the thing in whilst it travelled powered off – because if you think I would use this thing for the journey back, with the amount of glass it was shedding, you’ve got another think coming.

And that’s from a battery safety angle more than anything.

Going into the Apple Store at Marina Bay Sands at 21:30 in the evening, I had no hope for… honestly anything.

When I arrived at the Apple Store, the staff were sympathetic and tried to help with what they saw – and also in some shock when I explained what happened. The staff ran the diagnostics and started hunting for a replacement part.

They also confirmed that the iPhone 14 Pro was covered by AppleCare+.

This meant that any costs for the replacement would be minimal.

After a bit of checking, they found one purple iPhone with 512Gb of storage in the whole of Singapore – at Orchard Road. After a little bit of back and forth by the staff, a work order was put in and the device was reserved for pickup the next day.

That would give me time to prepare for the appointment – given that I would need to get the data transferred off the current iPhone and onto a new one.

With all that done, I headed off into the night and off to the MRT station.

With the emergencies passed, I was in the mood to take it a little bit easy. At least my ticket on the MRT was on a smart card this time – one less thing to worry about at that point. I think a taxi ride would have broken me at that point.

Whilst on the MRT back to Bugis, I used the phone through the plastic bag just checking data and things hadn’t been impacted. Call it paranoia in full swing.

It was during this point, that the physical SIM could not be contacted by the phone – and went offline. Thankfully, I had the eSIM attached to it still at that point.

Sigh.

There’s always one more thing.

Overnight

Arriving back at The Mercure Hotel, firstly I managed to secure the late check-out – I had a feeling I would need it the next day.

But once I arrived back (and forgetting to get dinner on the way), there was plenty of work to do.

The night ahead was going to be a long one, as I needed to complete an iPhone backup. The device needed to be synchronised with the MacBook Pro, as opposed to using a cloud backup service. With 300Gb of data on the device, iCloud is a no-no – purely on cost on an ongoing basis (let alone the time needed to copy all that content onto iCloud).

£8.99 a month adds up…. fast. Because everyone loves subscriptions for services (and you can pay that much for AppleCare+).

I did some computer spring cleaning while the backup commenced. Given I needed to shift 300Gb of data off the laptop – that’s another challenge I didn’t need.

As well as this, I was keeping an eye on the device like a hawk (with all that glass, there was a glass of water nearby – in case the Li-Poly battery had been compromised and it decided to ignite).

Like a hawk, watching this thing 

May the backup deities work their magic, whilst the OLED Screen is at its safest point during this work – it being off. 

By 3 am, I had a valid backup, as well as a lot of data migrated off the laptop. I do wish Apple implemented USB3.2 on all of its devices (even the brand new ones – some only go at USB2 speeds, with a USB-C interface). And yes, that meant running the differential backup as well as the main.

It’s called dotting i’s and crossing t’s. Or being paranoid as hell when it comes to my data.

Now, I needed sleep, as well as the instant noodles I had brought for a “just in case” emergency (as I skipped lunch and dinner that day).

With the phone switched off and me filled, I dozed into a restless sleep.

The Next Day

I was up late – as the night before took a lot out of me. Powering on the iPhone, it was still working, even if my normal SIM card wasn’t registering (at least the eSim did).

I managed to get a Grab over to the Apple Store on Orchard Road – again, another place I never want to be first thing in the morning. I’ve never been in an Apple Store as the first person in the store – but here we are on Orchard Row just before opening time.

Apple Store on Orchard Road.

I was pre-processed outside by the store staff, with my appointment checked in. Once the doors were opened, I headed upstairs to be processed.

The employee went through the case notes (raising their eyes more than once) but did confirm that I could have this covered under AppleCare+. I was told that the rest of my AppleCare+ would transfer over. All 15 days remaining of it.

If there was a time for a disaster to happen, this was it.

With the paperwork done, a replacement phone was issued, and the old one was taken to meet its fate.

It was a matter of the phone being registered on Apple servers, where my physical sim card came back to life in the new device. With it up and running (to the point I could start doing things), it was time for the worrying part. Restoring the iPhone and hoping the backup I had was valid.

Data Restore in flight.

For the best part of 3 and a half hours, I sat and watched a progress bar do its thing (as well as a process monitor, so I could see how much data had been written to the phone).

Which isn’t helpful, especially as I had a check-out deadline to meet (and failed, spectacularly). But by a mixture of luck and patience, eventually, the phone was restored… and rebooted.

I took this opportunity to return the lighting cable to the staff I had borrowed, and then let the phone start up. Eventually, on Orchard Road, The “Hello” prompt came up on the phone. From here, it was the usual Apple onboarding process to complete the phone being activated and check that the data, password chain and so on had been restored.

That done, the first app I downloaded was Grab (as the taxis on Orchard Road weren’t playing ball), to get back to The Mercure Hotel  to profusely apologise and check out.

The next few hours were spent watching applications reload, security checks triggered and reinstalling a lot of applications which had mismatched caches.

The only thing I lost – was the eSIM I had for Singapore.

And if I’m honest, some of my travel confidence.

What can we learn from this?

Firstly, no matter where you are in the world, never let your guard down and always keep your wits about you. Even in the safest of countries.

Secondly, AppleCare+ works worldwide for iPhones – let’s be grateful for that if you plan to travel and the worst does happen. Just avoid having the hero colours for your phone if you want to

Thirdly: Always have a decent backup of your device – be it in the cloud, or on a storage device. You don’t know when you’ll need it.

Finally: Never underestimate the kindness those who work and live in Singapore. Their kindness, plus the kindness of strangers made an awful situation salvageable, turning a horrible night into a successful recovery day.

Next:

Back to Changi and The Pokemon Centre. It’s time to get moving again.

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