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Apple Store Experience

M

mckeek

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 5, 2004
25
0
I live about an hour and a half drive to the nearest Apple Store (Glendale), and I made my first visit Friday (Jan 2). I have been lusting for a Powerbook to replace my trusty old G3/233 and my only experience with them has been at our local CompUsa.

I had visions of the Store to be a quiet place where I could spend a few minutes talking with a person who knows more about macs than me. Granted, I had my family with me (a 4 year old and a 5 year old, plus my astonishingly beautiful wife), so I figured on being in there 10 - 15 minutes, tops.

Well, the place was packed. I mean it was jammin'. Good for Apple! There were about 10 people for every staffer, so right away I knew that my dreams of a nice conversation were just that. So I went over to the PB section and checked out the 15" model, the object of my lust. It was dog-slow! I mean, even launching an iApp brought up a beach-ball. It had Dreamweaver on it, and since that's one of my main apps I fired it up. It took at least a minute to launch. Now I have launched DW on the PB at our local CompUsa and it is about as fast as my (work-issued) Compaq P1.8 XP laptop. At the Apple store it took at least twice as long to launch, maybe 3 times. There wasn't much else running, either. So I went over to the iMac section where there was a free computer and launched Word just for the fun of it - same thing! Super slow! At that time my kids were getting whiny and we had to go, so I never got to talk to anyone.

Do they have a bad disk image at the Apple store or what? I mean I know that G4's aren't the fastest things out there but both of these machines were at least twice as slow as any mac I have ever used, including similarly configured macs at our local Compusa. I still want a PB but it would have been nice to have had a "Wow" experience at the Apple Store.
 
jefhatfield

jefhatfield

Retired
Jul 9, 2000
8,803
0
i go to the apple owned store at apple inc in cupertino which is not too far from my house

while the room is nice, there is not a lot of stuff there...it's empty and because it's actually the company store for apple, they usually don't like to feature too much third party stuff and that's not great unless you want to buy something like a mac, apple display, os x panther, or final cut pro

other mac stores in the area have the macs, apple software, and plenty of third party software and hardware for the mac...it's amazing how much third party stuff there really is when you see a store that has it all stocked and in the store
 
Grimace

Grimace

macrumors 68040
Feb 17, 2003
3,568
226
with Hamburglar.
Dreamweaver should never take that long to launch. Mine loads on a G4 in under 3 seconds.

Keep in mind that with 10 people for every employee, there are a lot of new users out there who are screwing up the store models. I've seen people go in a change major system settings (for some reason the apple stores give you FULL access).

Even a crappy G4 will load Dreamweaver quickly - no worries about the store.
 
Awimoway

Awimoway

macrumors 68000
Sep 13, 2002
1,510
25
California
Where do you live, McKeek? I live in the High Desert and the closest store for me is the one in Pasadena, which is very close to the one in Glendale and usually not quite as busy.
 
Grimace

Grimace

macrumors 68040
Feb 17, 2003
3,568
226
with Hamburglar.
See if you can go at an off-peak time. January 2nd may have had a few too many shoppers still. A 90 minute drive IS WORTH IT to an Apple store if you can have some "alone time" with the products. Be glad you have one within that distance, some people drive for 4 hours or more.
 
T

the_mole1314

macrumors 6502a
Sep 16, 2003
774
0
Akron, OH
People REALLY mess around with the computers there. Each night they have it set up so that all the computers re-format themselves with a new image for a fresh, new day. Go in the morning and test it out.
 
M

mckeek

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 5, 2004
25
0
Aminoway, I live in the Santa Barbara area, so Glendale is closest - I think Pasadena is about 15 min further. They need one somewhere like Westlake or TO. BTW, Jan 2 was a super busy day everywhere retail, so I can't blame Apple too much for that.

Also, I agree with Carltonmusic on DW launch time - at very least it should launch as fast or faster than my (work-issued) pee-cee laptop. Perceived (as opposed to real) speed or lack thereof is almost always related to app launch time on any box, and I agree that your basic G4 laptop is plenty fast enough. There must have been some serious problem, perhaps user-induced, with the machines at the store. It was a little embarassing though, showing my wife the machine I am about to drop 2 grand on and her saying "I thought it would be faster than our one at home."

I probably will actually take a day off and physically purchase my machine at an Apple store so I can at least boot it up on the spot and know that its not DOA.
 
Horrortaxi

Horrortaxi

macrumors 68020
Jul 6, 2003
2,240
0
Los Angeles
Originally posted by Awimoway
the closest store for me is the one in Pasadena, which is very close to the one in Glendale and usually not quite as busy.
Click to expand...

The Pasadena store is 15 minutes away (5 minutes if you're already on the freeway) and is much easier to get in and out of. The parking at the Glendale Galleria is so bad I'll always take the Pasadena store.

I was in Best Buy (Burbank) last week and noticed their Macs were all pretty hosed looking. I tried to "fix" them but they don't allow any access to System Preferences or terminal. So they make them look bad on purpose. I like the full access in the Apple Store--they're the only ones who can display a Mac properly.
 
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