1) It was not particularly busy. It was in the middle of the afternoon and the number of reps slightly out weighed the number of customers. If I had not followed MR, I would not know there was anything particularly special about today at the apple store.
2) There were 4 of them goofing off at the front of the store. So much so that they didn't even bother to greet me at the door
3) My point was, when I finally got to talk to a rep they claimed they didn't have any older models, however was able to pull one out for someone else no problem. To give a bit of background, the women that got the machine had walked in for a genius session with no prior visits. I was there long enough to see the entire transaction. To be honest, I feel she probably should have received one of the new MBPs instead of getting the 2010 model or at least offered it as an option with a little money on the side.
4) They weren't kids at all but rather all mid to late 20's. However you gotta get a job where you can.
Lastly, Had any rep at anytime tried to sell me a machine at all, I might have been more inclined to buy something right then. My point here is that the "These things practically sell themselves" mentality where $1000-$2500 is involved is not acceptable. Similarly, when you go shopping for a car, whatever your intentions, you expect some service. There was none here.
I don't blame Apple directly for that in-store experience as that is the kind of dice you can roll in the retail game. My previous experiences at that same store have generally been good but the bad experience compounded with my disappointment at the 13" models, briefly made me reconsider buying a mac at all. Had it not been for the fact that I'm a longtime mac user and the fact that I'm generally adversed to impulse spending, I might have gone with another manufacture all together.
Overall I'm just venting, It was certainly not how I expected this launch to go down but, meh. I suppose it's what I get for having expectations for a spec bump. Lets hope they iron things out for the redesign next year
Honestly, Apple products are great whilst they work OK, but as soon as you need service, or warranty support, one discovers the true colours of this pathetic excuse of a company. One of our Dell's was repaired within a week. With Crapple you get the same "repair in progress" message, try to call an apple store and you need to go through crapple care. After being on hold for almost 20 minutes I got to talk to somebody who took my repair ID code, and told me it "could be a few days yet, it's only been 2 weeks since you brought your macbook pro to the store for a warranty job" I told him this is a work machine, and Toshiba and Dell hardly ever take this long, and they keep you updated. I got hung up on. I called back and after being on hold for nearly 15 minutes, and got onto somebody a little bit more helpful, in that she transferred my call to the store concerned and after being on hold for over 20 minutes, was told that the parts had arrived (logic board), and because of the large number of other people's repairs, it will be a few more days until they can get to my macbook pro.
Large number of other people's repairs ???
This tells me that Crapple products are in fact crap. At the office there's 4 macs and around 25 machines of other flavours. Apart from a dropped Dell needing a LCD replacement, all but 1 crapbook pro had needed warranty service, the average turn-around being 2-3 weeks.
Much as I love the keyboard, screen and overall look and feel of my 13" Macbook Pro (mid-2010), this is my first and LAST TIME i will ever buy ANY apple product. So they can go all out and make their machines look and feel fantastic, but unless you have reliable electronics inside, they're still crap. It doesnt matter how good it looks and how good a casing they use, if you're putting **** quality electronics under the bonnet, all you have is an overpriced, over-hyped piece of crap. At least I can depend on my Dell and my Toshiba, they don't have the super high quality aluminium housings and such, they feel cheap and plasticky, but at least inside there's quality manufacturing. With apple, all that's keeping the company alive is an army of braindead noobs who blindly follow retard Steve Job's every new product announcement and then go and line up at their local crapple store to try to be the first to have their new inferior overpriced crap quality gadget.
Like I said, Crapple's good until you need warranty service, then you have no idea where you are or where you're going. That might be OK for domestic users, but for us business people, we cannot afford to buy ****. This is the reason why Toshiba, Dell, HP and Sony dominate the notebook market, this is the reason why Blackberries and Nokias dominate the mobile phone market, and why the business community has been slow in the uptake of iPhones - how can you run a business with a handheld piece of crap where you have no idea how long the battery will last, unlike other smartphones, with the crapple iPhone, sometimes I get 3-4 hours, sometimes 5-6 hours, with similar usage, yet get a real phone like a Galaxy or a Blackberry and you can survive, prosper the thrive without having to be continually tied to a charger unit. Apple are the pits. And no flash video support in the itoy (iphone), what a farkin joke. Suppose the apple policy is their products are overpriced, cheap and nasty toys, if they included flash support on their itoys, errr iphones, maybe business users might take to them like they have to the Galaxy, Streak and Blackberrys.
