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Apple Store staff should really read up on their products...

J

JimmyPop

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 31, 2010
7
0
I'm really interested in buying a base 11" and I'm sure the 64GB will be more than enough for my needs, however I popped in to the Apple Store in Glasgow yesterday to find out a bit more. My main question (which has been answered several times here in the past few days) was how much space would I be left with after OSX/iWork/iLife installation.

The store employee took me over to one of the display models and opened up the HD which showed 63GB left and told me the whole package took up less than 1GB. I quietly pointed out to her that she was showing me a 128GB model and I knew for a fact OSX would take up at least 4GB. She apologised and said she would go ask a colleague. When she came back 5 minutes later, her answer was even more ludicrous - apparently OSX/etc. is on a ROM chip which means I have the full 64GB free! I thanked her for her help and made a quick exit.

I don't think this was a particularly obscure question (indeed, given the space restraints of the base model, quite a valid question) and really something that the staff should have a vague idea about. I just wonder how much other bull they spout to unsuspecting customers. I was pretty shocked as the staff have always been pretty knowledgeable when I've asked them anything in the past.
 
This just shows that Apple's employees aren't different from other companies'. Their #1 aim is to sell products and speeches like that sell products, even though they were false.

What I've read, the 64GB SSD has around 49GB of free space
 
I have the 11.6 64GB 4GB which I love...Free space off the bat was about 48GB. I installed Firefox, Adium, Flash and a few other small programs, installed updates and I now have about 45GB free. This is more then enough for me as I keep all my files on an external network storage device. Hope this helps.
 
I feel like 2-3 years ago they were much better qualified... Now, over the last week as I came and went, they are horrible... No knowledge of information, don't listen, try to oversell, lie and give you wrong information, pushy and aggressive... What changed?
 
With the 128 I have 72 free, iwork, office 11, small photo library, few movies i just cant see the 64 being much use.

32-64 good size for iOS devices, however the air has full osx and programs and storage hungry files.
 
Cheers

Cheers guys.

I think I'll end up going for the base 64GB. This is going to be a secondary computer (more of a luxury really) and can't justify the added expense for a 128GB model. I'd already pretty much made my mind up before I went in to the store yesterday but wanted to chat to them and get their estimate of how much functional space there would be - last time I do that!
 
Romulus said:
I feel like 2-3 years ago they were much better qualified... Now, over the last week as I came and went, they are horrible... No knowledge of information, don't listen, try to oversell, lie and give you wrong information, pushy and aggressive... What changed?
Click to expand...
Less products. No iPhones, iPod touches, AppleTvs, MacBook Airs. No SSDs, not glossy/antiglare options. ProCare came with a year of what they now call One-to-One included. Volume. If you reverse out all of the growth, the stores were also about 400% less busy back then, making it a lot easier to staff with people that have the fairly unique ability to be technical enough to know the stuff that the OP wanted to know, but don't mind spending 90% of their day talking about the very basics of OS X/iLife (or how to use the multitouch trackpads) to people who don't know anything about a Mac, or selling iPhone cases.
 
Yes the 11" I purchased has/had 48gig free prior to me installing anything. I am however planning on upgrading via the 256gig aftermarket card once it becomes available. Didn't see spending 200 and then further upgrading, just grabbed the base and will wait a bit till they release it.

I say that but so far running all my movies, iTunes and such off the wireless nas is working amazing well. Wasn't sure how responsive it would be but so far with Plex watching movies is flawless, no lag, no stutters etc...
 
Another common misconception of Apple Store staff these days is that the 2gb Airs can be upgraded later to 4gb.
 
OS X is on on a ROM chip? This is not a Mac Plus...you can't just boot OS X from ROM, it is on the Flash storage chip which is just like an SSD.
 
bossxii said:
Yes the 11" I purchased has/had 48gig free prior to me installing anything. I am however planning on upgrading via the 256gig aftermarket card once it becomes available. Didn't see spending 200 and then further upgrading, just grabbed the base and will wait a bit till they release it.

I say that but so far running all my movies, iTunes and such off the wireless nas is working amazing well. Wasn't sure how responsive it would be but so far with Plex watching movies is flawless, no lag, no stutters etc...
Click to expand...

+1 for NAS
 
If you're looking to save Space (I had a 64GB SSD in my MBP up until recently) - I'd suggest re-installing the base system from scratch when you first get the MBA.

That way you can choose which iLife programs you'll *need*. (Garageband Alone takes up ~2GB+ with all the instruments included). You can also choose to remove extra languages, etc...

There's also the program Monolingual which will strip out unneeded languages and save space w/o the need to reinstall the OS.

That being said, yeah, I'm often in the Apple Store and hearing the employees spout out jibber-jabber that makes no sense and/or is completely wrong.
 
Hi Jimmy,
When you were in the store, did you enquire if it was just the base models they had in stock or did they have other flavours of MBA.
I am up in Perth and was thinking about getting a MBA to go along with MBP I already have.

Cheers
John
 
JimmyPop said:
I'm really interested in buying a base 11" and I'm sure the 64GB will be more than enough for my needs, however I popped in to the Apple Store in Glasgow yesterday to find out a bit more. My main question (which has been answered several times here in the past few days) was how much space would I be left with after OSX/iWork/iLife installation.

The store employee took me over to one of the display models and opened up the HD which showed 63GB left and told me the whole package took up less than 1GB. I quietly pointed out to her that she was showing me a 128GB model and I knew for a fact OSX would take up at least 4GB. She apologised and said she would go ask a colleague. When she came back 5 minutes later, her answer was even more ludicrous - apparently OSX/etc. is on a ROM chip which means I have the full 64GB free! I thanked her for her help and made a quick exit.

I don't think this was a particularly obscure question (indeed, given the space restraints of the base model, quite a valid question) and really something that the staff should have a vague idea about. I just wonder how much other bull they spout to unsuspecting customers. I was pretty shocked as the staff have always been pretty knowledgeable when I've asked them anything in the past.
Click to expand...

LOOOL that's really horrible... Was she nice to look at, at least? ;P
 
I've had similar experiences at Apple stores. Some employees do know their stuff, but some don't. When I bought my MBA I asked for the 4GB and the first rep didn't even know they made one with 4GB. Then I was told they only did upgrades online. I finally asked the store manager to check in back and two minutes later the stock guy comes out with a 11" 1.6ghz 4GB model.
 
I was under the impression that RAM couldn't be upgraded at a later day? However, a rep at my local Apple store told me otherwise. He stated I could add RAM at any time, hmmm?? So which is it?
 
drbob20 said:
I was under the impression that RAM couldn't be upgraded at a later day? However, a rep at my local Apple store told me otherwise. He stated I could add RAM at any time, hmmm?? So which is it?
Click to expand...

RAM is hard soldered to the board, the SSD on the other hand is replaceable/upgradeable -provided you've got the appropriate screwdriver to open the case and a source for a replacement module.

re the OP, pretty shocking lol, might be partly down to you visiting on a Saturday when the weekend staff are on, maybe the Mon to Fri folks are a little more clued up..

Tbh Ive never had to deal with staff in Glasgow other than basic 'yeh I want X, is it in stock? great here's the dough and see you later'
 
I have the base model, and after reading a bit on here, I decided to do a clean install of OSX. I ditched the things I knew I would never be using, I have an iMac that I use as my main computer, this one is secondary, and at some point I want to set up a network to share my files. That being said, my capacity says 60.32, and available 51.55. I installed Firefox, Adium, Flash, and Dropbox. When I first got it and tried to import all of my stuff from my iMac, it wouldn't fit. I have 40 some gigs of stuff on there, and then realized I don't NEED all of that on my Air. I figure the $200 for the extra space can be spent purchasing an external hard drive or a network drive. So I've stopped being afraid of running out of space, and am just enjoying my Air.
 
It gets worse!

Well, popped in to the same store today with the aim of buying 11" base. Got chatting to one of the guys and mentioned I would be looking to install Office,etc. from DVDs and I assumed that remote disc was relatively easy to set up from my iMac. He was quite adamant that this was not possible and that my only way to install from optical media was to buy the SuperDrive. Again, I had to tell him to check his facts - he eventually did and came back rather apologetic!

John - I'm sorry to say I didn't ask. I will probably pop in later this week to finally buy one so will find out for you.

Jamie.
 
Don't make a quick assumption on apple based on one employee. Maybe the person was new or just got hired. So, I don't see why you should be up on their asses about not knowing how much storage was left on the SSD.
 
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