Thank you Axel! I did do that last night and after the Apple logo came up, it would stay a minute and then go away (black screen). Then the Apple logo would come up again for a minute, then go away again. It kept repeating this for 30 minutes or more. After seeing some instructions I went to the recovery screen, and then connected to iTunes again and chose “Update”. (That’s what the Apple support instructions said) That did not work, and I was back to the Apple logo, black screen, back and forth again. I had worn myself out and had to give up and go to bed. (I had also “chatted” with a Verizon agent who recommended taking it back to the store and getting a replacement.) Got up this morning with the intention of heading to the Verizon store, but decided to try one more thing. I got the phone back to the recovery screen and plugged into iTunes again but this time chose Restore instead of Update. I got the warning that it would uninstall iOS and reinstall but proceeded anyway. Figured nothing to lose at this point.
And that did it! It came back up as a new phone ready for set up again. Hallelujah! After that I downloaded my last iCloud update which was only about a week old ........ and so far so good. It has been about 6 hours since and the phone seems fine.
Thank you for replying! This site was very helpful! I’ve got a couple if weeks to take this phone back if need be, but it’s looking okay for now.
