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How the Apple Store Lost Its Luster

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Re: How the Apple Store Lost Its Luster

#241

Post by rootusrootus »

akvadrako wrote: post #229
rootusrootus wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's safe to say that someone who switches from a Mac to a Windows/Linux machine just because of a bad experience at the Apple Store is probably not quite telling the whole story. I assume they had other experiences that were already pushing them to make that decision, but which are not shared in this post.

Well I’m one of those people and it’s the only factor. They wasted so many hours of my time and money because of their poor service, I just feel bad buying anything from them.

To each their own, but you're setting yourself up for a lot of unhappiness if you think there isn't a corporation out there that won't disappoint you at least once. Switching your entire ecosystem out for one bad experience seems like asking for an unnecessary headache.

Re: How the Apple Store Lost Its Luster

#242

Post by BoorishBears »

scarface74 wrote: post #235
BoorishBears wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know how many Dells, Acers, and Asus laptops have known problems that affect the vast majority of units but will still take shipping your computer on your dime and being without for weeks at a time? My mother can afford a Macbook, I've told her this, but she insists on buying cheap Dells on sale. In 3 years she's gone through 3 200-300$ Dells. Every time they break Dell comes back with some untenable repair ar…

Then don’t do that (tm). I wouldn’t go near any Windows manufacturers consumer line of computers. They are full of crap ware and have horrible support. I have had no problem with Dell’s business laptops. Barring buying from the business line, I buy computers from the Microsoft Store.

Business laptops aren't immune from known issues.

Off the top of my head over the years I remember common LCD issues and GPU failures.

Every manufacturer has these problems, the difference is Dell releases something like 10 new Latitudes all with different model numbers and designations every year, so to find the common issues you search Dell latitude + your specific model.

With Apple there's 2 lines, with similar names. When there's an issue, everyone knows about it, it's easily searched and more importantly, easier to cover in a story. "The Macbook has tons of issues" gets reads. "The Dell Latitude 7490 has tons of LCD issues" gets... people who own Dell Latitude 7490, maybe. The former reads like a major story, the latter reads like a warranty announcement or something.

Re: How the Apple Store Lost Its Luster

#243

Post by b3b0p »

I walked into an Apple Store twice in the last month:

1. I walk up to an employee and said, "Want to make an easy sale? I want an iPad Pro 11" with the keyboard and Apple Care." As we were talking with in about 30 seconds after he pulled out his device someone came walking out with the items. I pulled out my phone and payed via Apple Pay. Done.

2. The next time I walked in, an employee asked me what I was looking for. I said, "I would like to buy a HomePod." He said and showed me exactly who to speak with. I walked over, I told him I wanted a HomePod and he asked which color. I said what do you recommend, as I liked the white, but was afraid it would show signs of getting dirty. He said black (Space Gray). He grabbed a Space Gray HomePod. I paid with Apple Pay and was on my way.

Apple Store @ Mall of America both times.

Re: How the Apple Store Lost Its Luster

#244

Post by carlospwk »

Finn here. We don't have an Apple store, but I've been to a few in NYC. Just wondering around and looking all the staff run around and people waiting gives me anxiety.

If I buy an Apple product, I either order it with express delivery from the Apple website (not very often) or go buy it from whatever electronics store has it in stock for the cheapest price. I have no idea why I'd want to purchase it from an actual Apple store.

When the keyboard on my MBP broke a few years ago, I just took it to whatever authorized repair shop and gave it to the guy after being second in line. First he did some temp fix, but when I told him I wanted it properly fixed under AppleCare, it was done in a few days.

Re: How the Apple Store Lost Its Luster

#245

Post by digikata »

ukyrgf wrote: post #240
digikata wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A pizza place I went to had a system where your order was in a warming oven with individual doors. Punch in your order num, pull out your pizza box and go.

Little Caesar's Pizza Portals are exactly this, there's probably 5 of them within 15 miles of your location.

Return of the automat

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat

Re: How the Apple Store Lost Its Luster

#246

Post by akvadrako »

rootusrootus wrote: post #241
akvadrako wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I’m one of those people and it’s the only factor. They wasted so many hours of my time and money because of their poor service, I just feel bad buying anything from them.

To each their own, but you're setting yourself up for a lot of unhappiness if you think there isn't a corporation out there that won't disappoint you at least once. Switching your entire ecosystem out for one bad experience seems like asking for an unnecessary headache.

It’s not that I expect fewer issues. The reason I started using Apple over Linux was because I thought I could avoid some of those headaches and I do think years ago they cared about quality of experience. But if I’m going to have just as much trouble I might as well keep my freedom.

Re: How the Apple Store Lost Its Luster

#247

Post by jharger »

justincormack wrote: post #190
jharger wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's kind of the key, right? If you're buying one or two items, the self-checkout is great! If you're buying a week or two worth of supplies, it's terrible. Here in the US, at least at the stores I shop at, each item requires that you scan it, wait for the machine to tell you to place the item in the bagging area, wait for it to register the weight, then you're allowed to move to the next item. If you accidentally…

It depends on the store design, Waitrose in the UK doesn't bother with the weighing thing, and you can scan as you go around the shop and just pay at the end. It is way more convenient.

One supermarket I went to tried that... but the user experience is so awful that no one wants to do it, so the scanners just sit at the entrance, lonely and unused.

Re: How the Apple Store Lost Its Luster

#248

Post by bunderbunder »

ghostly_s wrote: post #95
bunderbunder wrote: post #61

The absolute worst thing about going to the Apple store is figuring out how to flag someone down if they're busy. For that reason alone, I've stopped recommending Apple products to my older relatives. Once upon a time, the dominant factor was that the walled garden allowed them to feel less intimidated by their technology, which left them feeling like their devices were vastly more capable, even when they technically…

Obviously it sounds like y'alls experience has been different, but at the store I frequent in Chicago they have 1-2 people on staff doing this triage with everyone who walks in (though they just stand around the entrance, not at a desk). I definitely have had issues with wait time (I've mostly chalked that up to it being a very busy flagship location, but sounds like it's a larger issue), but they always check me in…

IMO, it really needs to be a visible place with an associated piece of furniture. Otherwise, the process just isn't discoverable: If the store is busy and both people are already talking to customers and then a third one walks in, that person is going to walk straight past them, possibly bounce off the genius bar at the back, and, if they don't have an assertive personality, spend a few minutes just sort of standing there looking helpless before quietly leaving.

Stick a small table or lectern with an "Information" (or whatever) sign above it in a clearly visible place, though, and then they'll just go wait in line there.

Re: How the Apple Store Lost Its Luster

#249

Post by ksec »

Before iPhone, Apple had ~160 Stores, and were expanding as quickly as they could, by 2007 they had nearly 200 Stores. And that was only serving ~30M [1] Mac users and less than 100M iPod users.

So how many stores did Apple add while having an extra 900M iPhone, 300M iPad, 70M Mac active users? 300. As of today Apple had roughly 500 Stores world wide.

Even if they had 1000 Stores worldwide serving their 1B+ Customers, the store to customer count is still insanely high.

Apple was actually expanding Apple Store as quickly as they could all the way to 2015. Given the quality and demand Apple requires it was still opening nearly 1 store per week. Then from 2015 onward there were only 60 Stores opened, most ( if not all ) of them were planned before 2015.

I still think giving Apple the brand image make over in Apple Retail were good, but it doesn't have to a trade off to Genius Bar and Stores Count.

[1]Speaking of Mac users, I have yet to see anyone to point out the number of Mac unit and Churn rate. Tim Cook said half of the Mac were sold to new comers, and they are mostly from China. That is roughly 10M. We would then expect Mac user base to grow at ~10M per year, assuming no one is leaving the ecosystem at a noticeable rate. Except it hasn't. Apple had ~55M Mac users in 2011, they said they were close to 100M users in early 2017. And only manage to hit the 100M in late 2018.

Or May be my analysis is wrong.

Re: How the Apple Store Lost Its Luster

#250

Post by ilikehurdles »

brewdad wrote: post #227
ilikehurdles wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had great experiences with their device support. Replacements, repairs, their folks seem to err on the side of cover the claim rather than deny the claim when the cause of the problem seems ambiguous. I don't have a complaint about support yet, but I can tell my keyboard on my current-gen macbook pro is going to start failing soon (the semicolon key no longer clicks when pressed, the tab key is inconsistent) and fr…

Your company doesn't have a backup machine you can work on for a few days? Even if you are a one person shop, you should have some sort of plan for hardware failure.

The majority of our company, especially on the engineering side, is remote employees. Honestly not a bad idea to ensure there is an employee hardware failure plan in place.
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