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Apple's $99 'One to One' Tutoring Program May Be Coming to an End
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From what I can dig up, One-to-one is almost a decade old. Things were different back then. Now technology is infinitely more accessible, along with a bazillion of free and instantly viewable training sessions online.
Surely hitting the keys on the keyboard to enter letters should be self-explanatory, and surely someone in your extended family must have heard of this phenomenon called Yuutjoob.
My research also tells me that the on/off button symbol appears to be identical to that on a wide range of telefaxes and color television remotes, which should dramatically ease the transition into the new era.
Surely hitting the keys on the keyboard to enter letters should be self-explanatory, and surely someone in your extended family must have heard of this phenomenon called Yuutjoob.
My research also tells me that the on/off button symbol appears to be identical to that on a wide range of telefaxes and color television remotes, which should dramatically ease the transition into the new era.
You're not alone. My mother just recently had some sort of permissions corruption with her iTunes library due to a recent restore from Time Machine. A quick "chown -R $USER ~/Music/iTunes" and it was fixed. She doesn't know how I fixed it, and she probably never will. That's what tech support is for, right? Ah well.
Same here. I started off knowing next to nothing, and now I know more than most people. Never spent a dime on training sessions. There just isn't a need for it for anyone who knows how to get the most out of google. That isn't as simple as it sounds though. I've known many people who just suck at putting in the right terms to get the results they're looking for. It's a delicate balance. You don't want to be too specific and end up losing the search result you're actually looking for, and you don't want to be not specific enough and risk having too many unrelated results.
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What I mostly get from these comments is that most geeks/nerds are competely incapable of envisioning non-geekiness and non-nerdiness ( a.k.a the rest of the world ). Most of them also tend to be young and single with plenty of free time, and think that the rest of the world is also young and single with plenty of free time.
1) No, not everyone in the world has a a family techie member that can assist them at all times.
2) No, going on Youtube to find the right tutorials about learning the basics ( and in your language) is not as simple as you think. Youtube and Google are jungles without maps. You need to be already pretty internet-savvy to filter out all the crap out there.
3) The majority of people in the world have a hard time learning by themselves and prefer to be teached by other human beings.
4) Older people have much less energy, time or motivation to waste time figuring out the best sources of technical knowledge. They just want to learn the basics quickly and get on with their life. Mastering Unix is not part of most people's life goals.
I've always been a techie and always learned complex stuff by myself, but you just need to live in the "real-world" to understand that it's not the norm.
I don't know all the whereabouts of why Apple killed this 1:1 program, but I consider that the more learning options Apple offers, the better.
1) No, not everyone in the world has a a family techie member that can assist them at all times.
2) No, going on Youtube to find the right tutorials about learning the basics ( and in your language) is not as simple as you think. Youtube and Google are jungles without maps. You need to be already pretty internet-savvy to filter out all the crap out there.
3) The majority of people in the world have a hard time learning by themselves and prefer to be teached by other human beings.
4) Older people have much less energy, time or motivation to waste time figuring out the best sources of technical knowledge. They just want to learn the basics quickly and get on with their life. Mastering Unix is not part of most people's life goals.
I've always been a techie and always learned complex stuff by myself, but you just need to live in the "real-world" to understand that it's not the norm.
I don't know all the whereabouts of why Apple killed this 1:1 program, but I consider that the more learning options Apple offers, the better.
The problem with bundling everything in is it raises the price. If they bundled Applecare they would need to raise the prices to cover the added costs. Unbundling allows users to make the cost decision themselves.
This is a good strategy for retaining customers, but doesn't look so good when people are comparing prices to other similar devices.
If they never buy in in the first place, you can't retain them.
Yeah I used to do the workshops at the Biltmore in Phoenix in the middle of the day and it was awful to try and teach in that environment. The poor creatives have to try and teach next to where the tech support is going down. It was far too much to try and fit into the footprint of that store.
Apple is growing too big for what it was supposed to be. Its no longer the personal computer company that has a mission of making technology enjoyable to use. Its now all about how much more or less profit they will make if they add that one extra option. Go read how much Steve Jobs lost per iMac just to make the translucent iMac covers.
but I don't blame Apple... in the end, they have to do whats best for their shareholders.
Interesting, how much training did some one have to go through before they are considered a Mac Genius? Are they still around with the red phone to call corporate?
but I don't blame Apple... in the end, they have to do whats best for their shareholders.
Interesting, how much training did some one have to go through before they are considered a Mac Genius? Are they still around with the red phone to call corporate?
Workshops are not for everyone. Some people, especially those who are new to the technology that we all take for granted as being commonplace will have very specific questions and needs, not to mention styles and paces of learning, that are not conducive to group training with broad overviews.
To some people $99 for a year of personal training sounds like a waste of money when you can easily figure it out yourself with the available and free resources around you.
To others, it's the best value any brand has to offer since it means for an entire year they can get the individualized attention they need to learn the things they need to know at the pace they need to set without interfering with or being interfered with by others. You can easily get a lesson a week from this program, meaning you're spending $2 an hour to learn in a safe, secure and respectful environment.
I can see the reasons why Apple would want to expand their free training at the expense of the paid version. A lot of people will benefit from this. But there's no question it will also negatively impact a lot of people as well.
One to one sessions at the Apple store would not have helped your mum to fix that problem on her own.You're not alone. My mother just recently had some sort of permissions corruption with her iTunes library due to a recent restore from Time Machine. A quick "chown -R $USER ~/Music/iTunes" and it was fixed. She doesn't know how I fixed it, and she probably never will. That's what tech support is for, right? Ah well.
Same here. I started off knowing next to nothing, and now I know more than most people. Never spent a dime on training sessions. There just isn't a need for it for anyone who knows how to get the most out of google. That isn't as simple as it sounds though. I've known many people who just suck at putting in the right terms to get the results they're looking for. It's a delicate balance. You don't want to be too specific and end up losing the search result you're actually looking for, and you don't want to be not specific enough and risk having too many unrelated results.
As a general comment, is it possible to have any story on this site without "APPLE IS DEAD. STEVE JOBS WOULD NOT ALLOW IT. COOK BAD." comments? I think a lot of you are possibly over-reacting just a little bit.
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Apple Software is getting worse at every release. Now is probably not the best time to stop One-To-One training.
You already pay an excessive "Apple Tax" on their hardware, paying $99/yr for this support just proves you are a total idiot.
I don't think there are many people left that scratch their heads anymore when they first encounter this new-fangled "enigma machine" and are left wondering how to access their electronic messages and check up on their bulletin boards and make their first eCommerce purchase anymore. I mean even a long time PC users will find OS X familiar these days, or vice versa, as all OS'es have borrowed HEAVILY off of each other over the years.
Apple has to end the "genius" style programs that show people how to put on an Apple Watch or use a Mac or iPod because it is kind of condescending to 99.9% of users that buy their products. Also Apple used to pride themselves on how intuitive and discoverable their hardware and software products are, so why need a program to help guide people to use something that was supposed to be easy?
Apple has to stop nickel and diming their customers on superfluous programs and add-on services and stop assuming their customers are total idiots...even when a small percentage of customers still want to throw Apple millions in after-market support and training.
I don't think there are many people left that scratch their heads anymore when they first encounter this new-fangled "enigma machine" and are left wondering how to access their electronic messages and check up on their bulletin boards and make their first eCommerce purchase anymore. I mean even a long time PC users will find OS X familiar these days, or vice versa, as all OS'es have borrowed HEAVILY off of each other over the years.
Apple has to end the "genius" style programs that show people how to put on an Apple Watch or use a Mac or iPod because it is kind of condescending to 99.9% of users that buy their products. Also Apple used to pride themselves on how intuitive and discoverable their hardware and software products are, so why need a program to help guide people to use something that was supposed to be easy?
Apple has to stop nickel and diming their customers on superfluous programs and add-on services and stop assuming their customers are total idiots...even when a small percentage of customers still want to throw Apple millions in after-market support and training.
I agree with your point of a newer / different product need some introduction. But using different operating systems (PC vs Mac) was not the big of a learning curve even in the early days IMHO.
Either way if definitely is not needed today.
I would just like to remind everyone who is saying only an idiot would need such a program or that everyone should understand the basics of Apple tech by now that Apple is removing the Smart Signs from their stores because people found them confusing.
That's right, the iPads embedded into the tables that showed you features and prices are being removed because customers either couldn't distinguish them from the actual products or couldn't figure out how to navigate them.
Now tell me again why no one really needs the One to One program anymore...
That's right, the iPads embedded into the tables that showed you features and prices are being removed because customers either couldn't distinguish them from the actual products or couldn't figure out how to navigate them.
Now tell me again why no one really needs the One to One program anymore...
You really don't find many "Creatives" that are well versed in Final Cut, Logic, Motion, Compressor etc. Once again users who are looking for Pro support are the small number at the top of the customer triangle. In my area trying to find an Apple Store who has a Creative knowledgeable in Motion is near impossible., I think they have one out of 8 stores in the immediate area. Booking a 30 minute session to get deep into Final Cut or Motion is a waste of time and the 1 hour time slots have all but disappeared. You generally have to be out two weeks or so to find a slot.
RIP One-To-One
I worked at the Forth Worth University Park Village Apple Store for nearly 5 years (2008-2013) and for almost 4 of them I taught One to Ones. I've seen some comments that say the One to One program was helpful for people to learn Macs. Let me assure you, that the vast majority of people using a One to One are not there to learn anything Mac specific, but are there to learn how to use a computer. To make it worse, if you did actually want to learn anything like Final Cut, Logic, or Aperture, there were only 3 people in the entire store who knew even one of those apps. So trying to book an appointment at a time when they were available was impossible. Apple also offered extremely little to no training for the Creatives (title of trainer) to learn the pro apps. Creatives were expected to learn it them selfs whenever an appointment didn't show up. Everyone I ever taught under the age of 30 came in for one training class and realized there isn't a whole lot different about using a Mac from a PC and thought that $99 was way to over priced for one training session. Even my father in law who had never used a Mac a day in his life never came back after his first session.
Right before I left, there were rumors of the One to One program going away. The store cut the number of trainers down and stopped hiring new ones when the current ones left. Ron Johnson was the reason the program got started to begin with so I'm not entirely surprised to see the program go away. It did take a lot longer than I thought though.
Right before I left, there were rumors of the One to One program going away. The store cut the number of trainers down and stopped hiring new ones when the current ones left. Ron Johnson was the reason the program got started to begin with so I'm not entirely surprised to see the program go away. It did take a lot longer than I thought though.
Sad to see this go. While it's not something I would use personally (I prefer to have a bash myself, then turn to the folks here if that fails), I think this was a great resource for people who are either time- or experience-poor when it comes to technology.
While the free workshops are great, plenty of people will always be hesitant to ask questions in front of their peers for fear of looking foolish, and some people will skip them because they don't want to listen through thirty minutes of stuff they already know to find out the answer to one or two specific questions they want answered.
Scaling this back is certainly understandable, but one highly-trained Creative, experienced with all programs, per store shouldn't be too much to ask. Someone could even split their time across a couple of stores in the areas with multiple outlets-- i.e., be in the North Side store on Mondays - Wednesdays and the South Side store on Thurs - Saturday. Convenient appointments might be a little harder to make that way, but people have no problem with accepting that they can't get a plumber, doctor, or vet appointment on the day and time of their choosing every time, so why should this be any different?
While the free workshops are great, plenty of people will always be hesitant to ask questions in front of their peers for fear of looking foolish, and some people will skip them because they don't want to listen through thirty minutes of stuff they already know to find out the answer to one or two specific questions they want answered.
Scaling this back is certainly understandable, but one highly-trained Creative, experienced with all programs, per store shouldn't be too much to ask. Someone could even split their time across a couple of stores in the areas with multiple outlets-- i.e., be in the North Side store on Mondays - Wednesdays and the South Side store on Thurs - Saturday. Convenient appointments might be a little harder to make that way, but people have no problem with accepting that they can't get a plumber, doctor, or vet appointment on the day and time of their choosing every time, so why should this be any different?
Folks,
I think the demand of One to One varies from one store to another. We need to go over to the stores and find out, observe with those learning experience before we could definitively conclude it is worthy or not. My mom, for example, has been taking the advantage of One to One for almost 5 years now, one of the tutors has also become our family friend too. True, my mom is not always learning exclusively about her iPhone, iPad, MacBook features or UI. But through her sessions, she was encouraged to explore more apps in the practical sense. It also offered Apple the revenue opportunities for new products and services in house. It may sound lame to some of us, being talked into a sale pitch from her tutors. But who am I arguing with my mom and others who would rather find making a Photo Book for the anniversary trip not worthy? It is sad to see this unique experience coming to an end.
Having said that, I am not writing off the group learning classes either. At least, in its current form along with the One to One, I have also observed a few sessions personally. The interaction with more people in a group setting is valuable, even though some might find it hard to focus with the already crowded locations.
I think the demand of One to One varies from one store to another. We need to go over to the stores and find out, observe with those learning experience before we could definitively conclude it is worthy or not. My mom, for example, has been taking the advantage of One to One for almost 5 years now, one of the tutors has also become our family friend too. True, my mom is not always learning exclusively about her iPhone, iPad, MacBook features or UI. But through her sessions, she was encouraged to explore more apps in the practical sense. It also offered Apple the revenue opportunities for new products and services in house. It may sound lame to some of us, being talked into a sale pitch from her tutors. But who am I arguing with my mom and others who would rather find making a Photo Book for the anniversary trip not worthy? It is sad to see this unique experience coming to an end.
Having said that, I am not writing off the group learning classes either. At least, in its current form along with the One to One, I have also observed a few sessions personally. The interaction with more people in a group setting is valuable, even though some might find it hard to focus with the already crowded locations.
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The problem with One to One (from the perspective of those doing the training) is that it pretty much defaults to "dumbing things down to the lowest IQ", because 9 out of 10 people who buy it do it because they really have no clue how to use a computer, or are just too afraid of them to learn on their own. I mean, if you can't figure out how to use a Mac ....
Well duh.... People buy training precisely because they don't know how to do things, not because they already know how to do it !
As for FinalCut and Logic, I highly doubt it was more than a tiny minority of 1:1 clients. Users for that type of software are usually a bit more technically knowledgeable, and know where to go look for info on the web. There are huge forums entirely devoted to audio recording and video editing software, filled with pro-users far more knowledgeable than the average Creative in Apple Stores, because they use the software every single day of their working life on real-world commercial projects, sometimes for decades. And that's where most FCPX and Logic users head first for help.
The problem with One to One (from the perspective of those doing the training) is that it pretty much defaults to "dumbing things down to the lowest IQ", because 9 out of 10 people who buy it do it because they really have no clue how to use a computer, or are just too afraid of them to learn on their own. I mean, if you can't figure out how to use a Mac ....
Only if it's optional. I've sick and tired of them adding **** to the software that folks that have no use for it can't get rid of. I've been using iPhones and iPads since they first launched, I don't need Tips. I don't use the podcast app on my iPhone , don't want it on there. etc. A downloaded app is fine.