Dear Apple,
While I know your question is pointedly about my recent experience in your store, it’s difficult to disentangle my feelings about the product(s) from my feelings about your Genius Bar service. As a loyal 20+ year Apple user and frequent buyer (I think I’ve owned about 7 or 8 laptops at this point, plus the early-days desktop or two, plus every version of iPhone, an iPad, you get the picture), I have seen Apple products get outrageously more expensive and the quality decline so drastically in the last few years (since, ahem, you-know-who died), that at this point I have very little respect or good will toward the company. Yet, here we are, totally beholden to each other.
A few months ago I bought a brand new $2500 MacBook Pro because my previous 4-year-old MacBook Pro was suffering slow-motion “hardware failure” and making my life a living hell. Despite the advice of several Genius Bar and Apple Care specialists, I opted to upgrade to a faster, stronger, heartier machine than they believed a “mere writer” could possibly need. “Those machines are for serious professionals,” was the basic gist of their advice. But, having run into constant speed and space issues with my last laptop, I went for it. I bought the Cadillac.
Which, needless to say, has turned out to be a Cimaron.
Since the start, I’ve had constant hair-pulling issues with my bluetooth mouse, my external monitor, and my Microsoft Office software crashing 25 to 30 times a day. Yes, I know you don’t support Microsoft products. Yes, I called them. Yes, I’ve tried everything. I actually bought brand-new Office-for-Mac software a month before I bought this laptop. It worked perfectly on my shitty old laptop. But on this one, crash city. Word, Excel, Powerpoint. They just… can’t.
(As an aside, have you noticed that no one uses the Mac versions of those ubiquitous Office products? So, I have to use them in order to communicate with people. Deal with it.)
Anyway, all of these complaints aside—oh also that the “i” button fell off even though I don’t use the keyboard; I use an external keyboard and keep the laptop closed 100% of the time—I know that what you’re really asking me is how my experience was AT THE STORE. Well, I’m giving it a 2. A few of the people I worked with were not condescending assholes. They deserve a bone thrown.
But that first guy. No. With characteristic “oh here comes a girl” tech nerd ’tude, he straight up told me that the reason I’m having problems with the external monitor (screen jumping around erratically when I use the Bluetooth mouse, pretty sure I’m going to start having seizures) is that, quote-unquote, “that monitor is too old and you need a new one.”
My Apple LED Display is 4 years old. It’s 4 years old and it cost $1000. A THOUSAND DOLLARS. For an external monitor, whose sole function is to plug in to my laptop—a machine it was literally and exclusively designed to work with—and reproduce the image in bigger format. Four years old, people. You’re telling me it’s “too old”? You’re telling me that, in addition to the $2500 I just spent on a brand-new laptop, plus the $100 on Word software, plus Apple Care, etc.—plus all the money I’m not making as I sit in your store and ignore my clients!—I also need a new $1000 display?
We all know you are obsolescence planners over there at Apple. We know you use most of your R&D dollars on devising new power cords that will ensure that every device upgrade also requires the user to buy new chargers. Fine, I get it. It’s your revenue strategy. But you’ve gone too far when you tell me that my 4-year-old monitor is obsolete. That is, pardon my language Apple, just complete horse shit.
So yeah, to answer your question, my experience at the Apple Store was not good. My experience with your products is not good. Right now, instead of working, I am watching my laptop restore from Time Machine to the tune of the next 43 hours.
2 stars. You’re welcome.
