Firstly, I'm not a techie person at all so my terminology will be basic - but this doesn't sound quite right to me!

Daughter's friend got a brand new IPhone 5s for Christmas and it "broke" a couple of weeks ago. She's able to send and recieve text messages and make and recieve calls but has no internet access so can't BBM/Snapchat/Instagram etc. This applies whether she is inside her house with Broadband or outside using 3G or 4G - not sure what she has.

They took it to be repaired (the phone isn't insured) and was told the problem is fixed but she has to wait until the next iOS update before it will work properly again. Does this sound right? Does anyone know when the next update is? She doesn't have to wait for 9, just another 8.? one - if there is even going to be another one. Apparently you can't uninstall and reinstall iOS8? Therefore, she could be waiting months until she can use her three month old phone again.

Any advice?

That doesn't sound right to me. Has she tried to do a full restore on the phone through iTunes?

I may be wrong, but I would have thought the only way you can "break" an internet connection is to lose the settings.

When you took it to be repaired, did they actually tell you what they did ?

No it's not our phone - it belongs to a friend of my daughter's who's obviously frustrated about it - she's 14! That's the only info I have but she could be having to pay her contract for months without being able to use the phone.

You can definitely do a full re-install. Plug it into an up-to-date copy of iTunes on a PC or Mac. The iPhone should appear at the top right. Then there'll be an option to do a 'restore'. This will re-download iOS and re-install it from scratch on the phone.

Thank you - I'll pass that on.

That definitely doesn't sound right at all.

If you don't like the sound of reinstalling anything, you could try a hard reset.

IIRC you just need to press and hold the home button on the front and the off button at the top at the same time for a few seconds - until you see the white Apple logo appear on the screen when its restarting. That might clear out any gremlins.

But you shouldn't have to wait for another software update to get it to connect to the internet.

a 3 month old phone is covered by the UK "sale of goods act" so _is_ under warranty - insurance is needed for things such when you drop and break it. Not for the device "not working as designed" within the first few months of ownership.

If this is poor advice from a network / phone shop (which is often normal) then take it to a real Apple store. It is always worthwhile. Apple can tell how old the device is and if there is a real problem with something only 3 months old will often just swap it.

best advice,book a genius bar appointment at your nearest apple store,they will fix or replace a iPhone that is still in warranty,if out of warranty will quote a repair price.

The first thing I would try before doing anything drastic is:

Settings > General > Reset > Reset Network Settings

Thank you all