Apple Store

Since getting my new iPhone I have had cause to visit one of the new Apple Stores. The fact that I had to visit the Apple Store at all, is a moot point.

After three days of use my brand new iPhone, the earphones died and after two weeks the power charger fizzled and popped beside my bed at 2am in the morning (the fact that I had spilled a glass of water an hour earlier may have had something to do with it but I wasn't going to tell the Apple dudes that).

I was told by someone not to try and navigate the Apple web site to log a fault but that I should just ring them. Not really being that keen on speaking to Bangalore and trying to get them to spell my name and street address while they try to tell me they can "see the weather's great outside", I nevertheless took this advice and placed the call. To my considerable surprise I spoke to someone with good English albeit an American. She was able to take all my details and and log my issues into their system - all they needed was the serial number from the iPhone. At first she wanted a credit card so to they could send me a replacement part! Why I have to give a credit card to get a replacement for a faulty part, which is under warranty, just so I am bound to send the faulty part by return mail is, I guess, just a reflection on society today rather than any specific fault of Apple's. When I would not give my credit card she suggested I head to an Apple store for a "repair appointment" with an "Apple Genius" (no need for modesty when you're Apple). Since I wasn't able to head to the Sydney city store until the following week she just emailed me the link to a calendar system so I could book the appointment when I wanted to. I duly did this with ease.

On the Tuesday I headed into the Apple Store and what a great experience that was! This is retailing of the future. It is a fully interactive store of three floors starting at the "anyone can play with it" level and progressing to the more complex products and more senior staff at the higher levels where the "Genius" repairers and advisors are. I did note several back packers checking their email on the Macs on the ground floor so these systems really are open and useable.

One of the highlights for me was the staircase. Each stair is very thick glass or plastic of some sort about 50mm thick so you can literally almost see through it as you walk up. Each stair is about 1/2 a normal stair in height so its a slow but relaxing walk up to the next level. The walls are sheer stainless steel with no pictures or advertising of any kind which I would say is a design que from the back of an iPod. There is a lift if you don't want to enjoy the stairwell.



As I got to the third level I was greeted by a young person in an orange tee shirt. Now all the Apple staff have bight coloured tee's so you can easily recognise them. They have different colours depending on how good looking they are. The good looking young women have orange tee shirts and the ugly fat geezas ("Genius's) wear blue ones.



My Orange "greeter" told me that my 3pm appointment was scheduled and I should sit down and I will be called. As I sat down I noticed another great feature - my name was up on a list of "up coming" appointments so I could see where I was in the queue.



Here's a closer look at the plasma with the queue:



So I dutifully sat down on these nice square poofs which were suprisingly comfortable. I noticed that the queue list screens did more. Every 10 seconds or so a new "tip video" is run which describes some little known trick to using your iPhone or iPod.



I learnt at least two that I didn't know and was studying the screen for more while I waited. These thoughful things are what makes the Apple experience that much above any other store and of course I barely noticed the 10 minutes I had to wait.

Here's a photo from the top level out onto the street and you can see that the floor does not meet the glass so when you look over the balcony INSIDE the building you can see to the ground.



Then my name was called and after a few minutes of paperwork I had my new earphones....but not my new power supply. Apparently they didn't have any in stock. Considering they have sold millions of these phones I found it somehwat surprising they were out of stock but I didn't mind because I got to come back another time to enjoy the experience.