I have been in an Apple Store exactly twice in my life. Once on September 9, 2006 when I bought a black 5th-gen iPod and video-out cable in Florida, and once yesterday in the Maine Mall in Portland, ME. As you have have read if you follow me on Twitter, I’ve been in the land of “soda” and faintly-colored money for a couple days so far; you also know that my iPhone screen broke on May 26.
My iPhone, although the screen was smashed, continued to work (power on, make calls, etc…) and would be a good backup phone to have for the future. So I should replace the screen; there were two options — do it myself (iFixit kit for $65) or have Apple do it. Given that I was in Maine, just minutes from an Apple Store, tt seems logical that should the screen be replaced by an Apple Genius. I went online and booked a 4:10PM appointment with a Genius.
At the store I checked in with an Apple employee and my name appeared on the Genius bar screen as #3 in line. At exactly 4:10 an employee led me to the bar and I explained my problem to the genius and he asked to look at the phone — he said he wanted to look at my SIM card, and I (embarrassed) said that I had, since the iPhone broke, bought a Nexus One and the SIM wasn’t in the iPhone. He popped the iPhone SIM card tray open and did a serial model lookup and said my phone warranty expired “yesterday” so… happy 1 year, iPhone 
… and although the warranty wouldn’t have mattered, it would be $199 to replace the screen and would take 5 minutes. That’s a bit steep.
He further examined the phone and found a crack in the case that I had lived with and ignored for the better part of the year I owned the phone, and said that the device could be replaced for free under an Apple recall issued for the 3G and 3GS with a cracked back panel. He explained that Apple has recognized they were using a defective plastic for the backing of the phone and would replace any phone that developed any cracking. Stellar. I got a replacement phone, fresh, new, sweet. I punched in my old password and deleted the contents of the phone, and it was placed in a box under the counter and out came a fresh iPhone. He took my Rogers SIM card and popped it in the iPhone to which it wouldn’t activate. Fail. I figured this would be an issues as iPhones are locked to their home carrier (AT&T in the US, Rogers, Telus, or Bell in Canada, etc…) He suggested it would activate when I got to a Canadian IP address.
Good news: I got back to the hotel, and even under the bad (filtered) WiFi at a Hilton, was able to activate (plug phone in, iTunes opens, phone says “iPhone Activated”) and successfully connected to the AT&T network (did not connect to a data network as data roaming was disabled) — even as far as showing “AT&T” next to the bars, instead of the “ROGERS” I’m used to seeing. I hoped this phone works when I get home (fwiw — in the Settings > About page, “Rogers 5.0″ is displayed as the carrier, and my phone number is displayed as “My number”). This is a great experience. I powered the phone on at the boarder and it automatically connected to AT&T, however I was able to select “ROGERS” from the carriers list in the Settings.app. The phone now works perfectly, although I’m faced with the tough decision to chose between the Nexus One and the iPhone.