Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Apple Retail Ends Genius Training in Cupertino, Moves to In-Store Web Seminars

MH01 said:
Let's say you take your brand new car in for a service, very expansive brand new car that developed a problem, anything wrong with the mechanic learning how to fix it From a video? Sure they can pass that knowledge to users....but is it the correct knowledge or thier interpretation of it....
Click to expand...

For clarification -- are you comparing replacing a transmission with replacing an iPhone screen? Dissembling a car's console to replace a steering wheel airbag to Disassembling a iMac to replace the hard drive?

Macs and iPhones are no where near as complex as cars. Repairing iPhones and Macs is really not that difficult of a learning curve at all. Yes, it can be done with video training. How do you think all those people in Mall repair kiosks learned? All those middle and high school hobbyists?

This whole thing is much ado about nothing. I'm all for being critical of Apple where it deserves criticism. This is not one of them.
[doublepost=1489149801][/doublepost]
bruinsrme said:
Perhaps Apple should make there next keynote a video and see how people react to that.
Click to expand...

But they do -- they make it available after the live show. That is how many people do view it. Personally I would love it if they just released a video instead of a live event so I could skip though the 1 hour and 40 minutes of BS and get to the 20 min. of info that I actually want to see.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 9081094
+ cost saving
- loss of moral
- loss of actual technical skills

You can watch videos all day about repairing an iMac but nothing beats actually repairing one yourself.

What a shame!
 
  • Like
Reactions: jerwin and 9081094
I guess it all comes down to this; actually experience as opposed to theoretical knowledge. I can study what keeps an airplane in the air forever but would you want me as your pilot?
 
photosbynick said:
There must be a huge turnover rate of them now. When I worked there from 2005-2010, they sent the Creatives and Genius crew to Cali for a month to do hands on training and then in store work. It was the best experience ever. When we got back, we brought back that corporate vide and culture to the store on the retail level. The entire store benefited from a few of us going out there. It brought the store morale up. It was like an award to go to corporate and train. Now that they will do it in the store level, this will not bring the same benefits that it once did. Loyalty will go down and those employees will be more likely to leave Apple sooner than in the past. I would have still been there as a Creative if I wasn't recruited to go elsewhere.
Click to expand...

Totally agree, but you also address Apple's side. Apple definitely has a "brain drain" issue. Not to feel bad for Apple, but I totally capitalized on their Cupertino genius training (granted after working the bar for four years) and parlayed that into a much less stressful, higher paying, non-retail position. I do hope this new tact works out for Apple. It will be a tightrope walk between emotionally and academically vesting new genius prospects in their job and saving money.
 
In addition to the obvious problems with web based training, one thing many people don't realize is that there is no dedicated quiet space in any retail store where employees can focus on any kind of training at all. Most employees have to use the Macs in the BOH where it's busy with activity and very noisy and there is usually no physical counter space to write anything down as you take notes. This may be different at flagship stores and I know HQ treats flagships very differently from all the non-flagship stores.
 
Chupa Chupa said:
For clarification -- are you comparing replacing a transmission with replacing an iPhone screen? Dissembling a car's console to replace a steering wheel airbag to Disassembling a iMac to replace the hard drive?

Macs and iPhones are no where near as complex as cars. Repairing iPhones and Macs is really not that difficult of a learning curve at all. Yes, it can be done with video training. How do you think all those people in Mall repair kiosks learned? All those middle and high school hobbyists?

This whole thing is much ado about nothing. I'm all for being critical of Apple where it deserves criticism. This is not one of them.
[doublepost=1489149801][/doublepost]

But they do -- they make it available after the live show. That is how many people do view it. Personally I would love it if they just released a video instead of a live event so I could skip though the 1 hour and 40 minutes of BS and get to the 20 min. of info that I actually want to see.
Click to expand...

Trust me, building, let alone diagnosing and repairing a computer is beyond most people. You can watch a video on how to replace a HD inside an iMac, it does not mean you will not mess it up.
 
MH01 said:
Trust me, building, let alone diagnosing and repairing a computer is beyond most people. You can watch a video on how to replace a HD inside an iMac, it does not mean you will not mess it up.
Click to expand...

I'm guessing that the people applying to Apple as a Genius to repair devices don't come with no experience in repairing devices - they aren't "most people". Still a computer or phone is no where near as complex as any modern car. For example, it takes nearly a week to build a BMW. An iPhone or Mac takes minutes or hours.

I'm also guessing Apple doesn't hire people to repair that have no experience or other qualifications indicating they have that ability. Home builders don't hire real estate agents to do framing, electrical or plumbing either.

Also guessing individual store managers do not let rookies go it alone anymore than a law firm gives first chair in high profile cases to first year associates.

Bottomline here is my confidence is unchanged here that if I go to an Apple Store for a repair it will be done correctly. The way the person doing the repair learned - I don't care. Apple has certified that they know how to do it to Apple standards.
 
Last edited:
No positive benefit to this except to Apple's shareholders. I was a Genius from 07-14, being a Genius meant something back then - and the training in Cupertino was intensive, top-notch and invaluable. Even got to eat lunch two tables away from Steve Jobs and Jony - there's no equivalent to feeling as part of a brand as spending a few weeks at HQ.

Everyone loses from this ugly cost-saving measure. There's no comparison for hands-on classroom training, Webex/Skype is not sufficient to learn how to handle a frozen screw, difficult fasteners inside, how to properly handle these delicate machines inside. Apple might learn that the hard way, or they'll just make all Macs like iPads and they'll be depot/swapped anyways.
 
MH01 said:
Don't be fooled by R&D budgets.

My company spends £200 million a year on R&D, cause they have a main revenue stream that brings in so much money and they want no risks with that....(like iPhone) they are happy to throw money around into "R&D" so investors get excited. Investing in R&D does not mean new products......

case in example... http://www.coca-colacompany.com/sto...obal-scale-to-take-innovations-further-faster

R&D is a PR/Markerting dream :)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply! :) But I wasn't trying to make the point that a big R&D spend = great products. Just a "beancounter" CEO would not increase spending just for the sake of it. There's other low hanging fruit he could use if he wanted to make Apple look innovative.
 
  • Like
Reactions: MH01
Former Genius here. I had a chance to head out to Cupertino for Genius training. It was an unforgettable experience. shame they are changing this up. I can tell you one thing - in-store trainings do not come close to what on-site training can do. Stores are extremely busy 24/7 and its literally a zoo. Many stores do not have the adequate space to conduct trainings.

All in all, the Genius role is not what it use to be.
 
Chupa Chupa said:
I'm guessing that the people applying to Apple as a Genius to repair devices don't come with no experience in repairing devices - they aren't "most people". Still a computer or phone is no where near as complex as any modern car. For example, it takes nearly a week to build a BMW. An iPhone or Mac takes minutes or hours.

I'm also guessing Apple doesn't hire people to repair that have no experience or other qualifications indicating they have that ability. Home builders don't hire real estate agents to do framing, electrical or plumbing either.

Also guessing individual store managers do not let rookies go it alone anymore than a law firm gives first chair in high profile cases to first year associates.

Bottomline here is my confidence is unchanged here that if I go to an Apple Store for a repair it will be done correctly. The way the person doing the repair learned - I don't care. Apple has certified that they know how to do it to Apple standards.
Click to expand...

Well you do. Cause if they did not apply say the paste between the CPU and heatsink, your computer might throttle all the time, while still functioning. You do understand that there is a difference between a repair and a good repair?

Lets drop the car analogy than....i could not be bothered about explaining the skill set to the appropriate level of maintenance needed. Cause I have never had to return to a dealer cause the service was done wrong by a junior...... :)
 
amegicfox said:
if Tim loved green and recycling he would have not soldered the RAM on the Mac Mini and iMac, he would have let the iPhone battery access to be exchanged, mouse battery etc. Him and Phil Schiller even deride Apple users who have owned a Mac for more then 5 years. They want us to throw away perfectly functioning Macs and buy new ones for no reason.

I can't wait for another company to make an exact copy of OS X or even a better OS so I can finally move completely off the Tim stronghold monopoly locked ecosystem
Click to expand...
Soldering doesn't affect recycleability. And Steve Jobs was the one who envisioned a computer where the user never touched the insides. Wozniak was the reason the initial Macs were upgradable.
 
happyslayer said:
This seems to be a continuing trend. My last two visits to the Genius Bar have been, in my opinion, less than good. Not a lot of help at the time (and it now takes 3-5 days to even get an appointment!) and they just took the laptops and sent them away for repairs, meaning I or my customer was without a laptop for 5 days. This new "training" philosophy seems to only accentuate that; the techs at the stores will no longer be able to do any actual repairs onsite, just send them away to hardware-trained techs elsewhere. I think the Geniuses are now just software/Apple ID issue support people now. Not actual hardware support.
Click to expand...
After they screwed up on the repair with my MBP, they admitted to me that they did no in-house repairs, but they actually kicked it out to a local "authorized repair facility" who couldn't fix the issue, so they then shipped it off somewhere else.
 
Chupa Chupa said:
I'm guessing that the people applying to Apple as a Genius to repair devices don't come with no experience in repairing devices - they aren't "most people". Still a computer or phone is no where near as complex as any modern car. For example, it takes nearly a week to build a BMW. An iPhone or Mac takes minutes or hours.

I'm also guessing Apple doesn't hire people to repair that have no experience or other qualifications indicating they have that ability. Home builders don't hire real estate agents to do framing, electrical or plumbing either.

Also guessing individual store managers do not let rookies go it alone anymore than a law firm gives first chair in high profile cases to first year associates.

Bottomline here is my confidence is unchanged here that if I go to an Apple Store for a repair it will be done correctly. The way the person doing the repair learned - I don't care. Apple has certified that they know how to do it to Apple standards.
Click to expand...
There are way more chips nowadays in a BMW than an iPhone :D. But I think we are comparing the mechanical parts of each as chips and screens can't be repaired. The only difference in manufacture is that BMW uses almost only robots, while the iPhone gets mostly build by hand.
 
MH01 said:
You do understand that there is a difference between a repair and a good repair?
Click to expand...

I do and more importantly I am certain Apple does. Apple isn't going to piss away it's good will by providing shoddy repairs or miserable customer service.
 
Chupa Chupa said:
I do and more importantly I am certain Apple does. Apple isn't going to piss away it's good will by providing shoddy repairs or miserable customer service.
Click to expand...

Well we will not know that until we see if these changes result it any consequences . Penny pinching initiatives and creating a further divide between HQ and retail is not going to get you the best people. And if you do not get the high quality applicants, quality goes down. Do you see where I a, coming from?
 
I expect the quality of the repairs being done at the store to decline.
 
Deuce on the Clock said:
They will get you. They troll these sites. They already know you were in retail. They have a time frame.And they can see if you're in Cupertino or Austin. A screenshot to business conduct will open a huge can of worms.
Click to expand...

ROFL, Timmy's band of politically correct employee hunters, Liberace forbid if he posted something off the silly little narrative coming from Timmy world.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Deuce on the Clock
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back