Poor customer service and satisfaction from Apple

I have been an iPhone user and Apple customer for over 6 years. A few days ago the screen on my iPhone 7 Plus (which is only a year old) randomly blanked out. First of all it was an unpleasant experience getting Apple to assist me at all until they could confirm whether or not I had bought my device from an iStore. They unsympathetically insisted that I provide a serial number for a phone that had blanked out before proceeding to help me. I had to retrieve the number from the iPhone packaging that I had kept, which was at home (while I logged my call from work). I was subsequently informed that my 1 year warranty had expired a few weeks prior to my phone blanking out, which timing was suspicious considering how new the device was and the pristine condition which it was in. Regardless, I sent my phone in for a diagnosis of the problem with the Sandton iStore on Thursday, 13 December 2018. I received a shocking quote from the iStore for R7000 for a replacement of my screen (which was diagnosed as the problem) - the cost of a new device! I responded by saying that that was unacceptable - particularly because the fault on my phone was a product defect on Apple's part as my phone was only a year old and in pristine condition. I also stated that unless the phone (which had only just fallen out of warranty) was fixed at Apple's cost they would lose my business and me as a client in toto. I received a very generic response from Apple quoting their policies on warranties, which in essence was a refusal to provide any customer satisfaction whatsoever. To add insult to injury, when I requested that my device be returned as is to the Sandton iStore I was informed that I could trade my device in if I didn't want to repair it with them. This is a display of a flagrant disregard for the customer by Apple while also emphasising a sense of elitism with regard to the provision of any service or assistance at all. Apple has lost me to Samsung as I would rather use the money that I was quoted for the repairs to purchase a different Android.