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Loving the 'Bat Phone' usage

Can't really see a genius rep using that phone, the guys in Cupertino would wonder if the guy phoning knew his job!
 
Steve wasn't 100% wrong. My initial experiences with the genius bar seemed to confirm what happens when you make gatekeepers of moderately functional but socially inadequate men.
 
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Well he was right in a lot of ways. Look at the Geek squad at best buy. Its pretty bad in my opinion. Apple hides the real geeks in the back

Geek Squad isn't bad because they are geeks, or because Apple Geniuses are less geeky and thus better at human interaction.

Geek Squad is bad because their employees don't have passion for the job, and because it is built around a culture of up-selling unnecessary service plans, selling worthless services, lies, and in general ripping off the uneducated customer.

I bought a car remote starter at Best Buy, to be installed by a Geek Squad auto technician. They added work to the work order after I signed it to make it look like I authorized it, lied about the cost estimate, and tried to sell me a protection plan that made zero financial sense.
 
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I was a Genius from 2007 to 2014, all ACMT certified personnel did repairs in the back AND supported customers up front. There was no division there - what has changed is that back in 2007, store management really wanted technical people, now they just promote solid, enthusiastic specialists and the like.
 
I'm not surprised. There are no small number of CEOs who have inaccurately called out other ideas...
--Well, Balmer saying the iPhone won't do well at all, which isn't quite on point since he was a CEO of a competing company, but.. I just had to bring that up.

Ray Kroc of McDonalds..
--scoffed at the idea of medium fries and large fries (any other size then the single one at the time). If consumers wanted more fries, they'll just buy 2 orders of fries
--or the idea of fish sandwiches "stinking up my stores". The person who introduced the filet-o-fish did so out of necessity to cater to the Catholic population that abstained from eating meat on Fridays (that's how the other burger joints stayed in business), but he had to pit his creation against Ray Kroc's Hula Burger. The Filet-O-Fish sold 350 sandwiches. Ray Kroc didn't say how many of his burgers he sold, but it was estimated to be around a dozen, with the most common comment... "I like the pineapple, but where's the meat?" :p
 
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I really appreciate the genius bar. It's one of the reasons I stick with apple. Their support post purchase is best in class.
Unless of course you own a 2011 rMBP that had a graphics failure, or a 2013 Mac Pro with, you guessed it - a graphics failure…….
 
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I've had nothing but good experiences getting things repaired, replaced, etc. at the genius bar. It's getting to that point where it falls apart. Called to make an appointment at a genius bar (New Haven Apple store) to get the battery replaced in my 6s. Dude on the phone makes my appointment for 6pm and tells me it'll take about 20 minutes. When I got there at 6, they told me to drop my phone off and come back in two hours. I told them that the phone guy said it would be 20min and they laughed at me.
 
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I always laughed at the name "Genius Bar." The average MacRumors member is more knowledgable.

Yeah, but the average MacRumors member is so far out of the mainstream it's crazy. We're extreme weirdos. We come on here and talk about micro-minutia of Apple every day.

For the most consumers, the Genius Bar is the best thing that ever happened to technology. Try getting technical support at some other store -- it's an exercise in futility. At the Apple store, people at minimum know the basics and are empowered to send off your device to get fixed when it's a bigger problem. But one way or another, you have a really good chance of getting your problem sorted out. Try doing that at whatever place you bought a Asus whateverbook.
 
Yeah, the Tech Support aspect is great, but the coordination/deployment is not so 'genius'. You walk into a super packed store, randomly bump into an employee taking/queueing appointments, then you get the ugly stare from the second person in line and behind them is an insane line of people snaking around the store just to talk to 1 of 2 people handling appointments.

They need to split that space into two, seriously, my anxiety goes through the roof when I have to walk into any Apple store.


LOL. That's why they have on line appointments. I've done the walk in thing and had to wait a few minutes, but never thought of complaining about it when I took the chance they would be busy and didn't have an appointment.
 
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If I ever need tech support then that's a hardware failure of product. Especially with Apple. You don't need to be a "genius" to offer tech support for any Apple product. The major selling point of Apple software is that "it just works" and the extreme simplification means that anyone should be able to figure out the issue on their own quite easily.

Genius Bar is a convoluted marketing gimmick for simple requests. Merging instructors and tech staff is just an obstacle for those who know exactly what they need. If I need to return a product I know is faulty, I have to make an appointment and then wait in line because someone wants to know how to open a photo in Preview. Then I have to explain the problem, someone has to ask me a lot of dumb questions to reach the same conclusion and then I get a result.

Alternatively go into another store, walk up to customer service and get a replacement or refund in couple of minutes. They may not have the superficial branding gimmick but they sure get to the point faster.
 
Never been to a real Applestore, those are too busy and the nearest one is too far away.

Who edits these articles? Why do they always include a long quote and then several paragraphs that summarize and even quote (again) the full quote that we just read?

I think it's an "American" thing, it's also done in newspapers, and many American TV programs do the same.

Repeating in Articles/News/TV programs just to make it longer seems to be the norm rather than an exception.
 
SJ was right. I've never had a so-called "genius" be able to fix anything. "Restore" is the only thing their trained to say/do.


Fortunately, you are the exception. There's a reason Apple support is number one among consumers and the Genius Bar is a big part of it. The few times members of my family have used it, it has been magically easy and effective. What is most amazing is that they have never not helped me for free on things out of warranty. I've taken a six year old iMac in and they worked on it for twenty minutes and diagnosed it for free and told me how to get it fixed. Nothing like it on the planet.
 
Who edits these articles? Why do they always include a long quote and then several paragraphs that summarize and even quote (again) the full quote that we just read?
Presumably MR's posting implies a slow news day, so a little more filler for a filler isn't that surprising.
 
The 'kids' section with the monarch butterflies. You can't make this stuff up! "you WILL buy Mac, you WILL buy Mac...." ;)
 
Geek Squad isn't bad because they are geeks, or because Apple Geniuses are less geeky and thus better at human interaction.

Geek Squad is bad because their employees don't have passion for the job, and because it is built around a culture of up-selling unnecessary service plans, selling worthless services, lies, and in general ripping off the uneducated customer.

I bought a car remote starter at Best Buy, to be installed by a Geek Squad auto technician. They added work to the work order after I signed it to make it look like I authorized it, lied about the cost estimate, and tried to sell me a protection plan that made zero financial sense.
Once, years ago, I had them install an amp, sub box, and I think head unit as well. First, the tech who was supposed to do it didn't show up on time, then, I sat for 8 hours while they did this...8...hours...for a small Honda Civic Hatch. And to top it off, they actually had the balls to charge me the install charges which was like 250 bucks. I got there at my scheduled time at like 10 in the morning.
 
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