[Macworld]

Post your comments for Why I dread going to the Apple Store here

[rwitt]

I have many memories of the CompUSA store in White Plains, NY and it's poor, poor Mac ghetto. Empty shelves, crashed Performas without mice, uninformed staff. Almost exactly the opposite of an Apple store. And still, I loved going there if only to see the product in person. Ah the 90s.

[rwitt]

As an addendum to my previous post, I too, as a public service, took it upon myself to make the Macs at CompUSA more presentable. Restarting "bombed" PowerBooks, renaming hard drives from "ADSKLFJADKLFH," answering questions, etc. Glad I don't have to do it at the Apple Store.

[antiglare]

Forgot to mention the insanely high noise level. Apple stores are all hard surfaces, nothing whatsoever to trap, absorb, or block sound. This gives the stores the acoustic experience of a grade school cafeteria at lunch hour.

[kylecronin]

Completely agree with you, especially about having to hunt down someone to take your money. Not having cash registers isn't counter-cultural, it's just stupid.

[Fletch999]

That's what the Apple store app is for. Scan your own product and pay for it without assistance. Easy peasy. Any non-serialized product can be paid for with the app..

[cashxx]

The CompUSA we had here Apple had a person or CompUSA had an Apple person in place and the store within a store was pretty nice. Rarely did I find any problems.

But I hate going to the Apple store, its always so crowded and takes forever to get someone to help you and check out.

[Kimkfeq]

No one goes there any more; it's too crowded!

[lkalliance]

I actually used to just go to hang out at the Apple Store, but for the reasons in the article I don't do that any more. I'm not turned off by going, and I do go to conduct research on the product I'm considering, even if I don't intend to buy. But it actually used to be a real destination, some place I'd go for entertainment. Got to know everyone on staff, asked them questions. But that's not possible any more, with the amount of traffic.

(That's actually kind of sad now that I type it out. Fortunately my palms haven't itched for new Mac product in a while.)

[ChrisKoerner]

You mention the Apple Store App in passing, then complain that you have to flag down an employee. You do realize that the point of the application is to make purchase of items such as a lightning cable without the need to interact with anyone, right?

[wotsac]

That has long been my feeling about Apple stores. However, my local store (Southcenter Mall, near Seattle) has added a dedicated pickup / payment area right at the door. It looks kinda terrible, since it's just one of their big tables and a nylon strap rope, with some of the small ticket popular items stacked up on the wall shelf behind it, but it really improved the experience enormously.

[doughannah]

This is hilarious. At the same time we have people saying Apple has been exposed as "just another tech company" with falling cachet, this bloke is complaining he can't go to the stores anymore because they're too crowded.

[redgeminipa]

Sadly, the closest thing I have to an Apple store is a Best Buy that's 35 miles away. My local Best Buy isn't a "Mac Authorized Reseller", but you can buy everything Apple that isn't a Mac, nor most Mac accessories.

I don't have a problem driving 35 miles to that Best Buy if I'm planning a Mac or Mac accessory purchase. It's still much closer than driving nearly 100 miles to the closest Apple store.

There is a small problem with this particular Best Buy, though. It almost sounds a little like that CompUSA you talk about, except it's not buried back in the corner with dim lighting. It does have, however, a shameful display of Macs. They're dirty. They look like they've been on display for years without a cleaning. I've left comments for Best Buy, but I doubt anyone actually reads them.

I know it's a store in a college town (PSU) probably staffed with college kids, but come on. Most of them are there (PSU) to learn, so teach them how to keep display models clean.

I made a trip to a much larger Best Buy outside of Pittsburgh to buy my Time Capsule, and I was very impressed with their Mac displays. They were clean (!) and they had plenty of them. I would guess the display space dedicated to Apple products is pushing the size of some small Apple stores. If I were to get back into retail, that would be the store to give me the incentive (working with the Apple products, of course). Too bad it's 90 miles away from home.

If Apple doesn't open a store closer to here, hopefully we'll see a Store-within-a-store relatively close by. We do have a fairly large Target...

[Axsdeny]

I can only agree with the first one.

1. Hire more staff at the busiest Apple stores.

2. Imposing time limits are what the old generations used to do. Time's change, and Apple got it right. Let them play all they want. They know their craps work - for more than 30 minutes and not have to worry about rebooting.

3. They did add alternate ways of purchasing your product. Like you said, there's an app for that!

You dread coming to the Apple store? Don't go. Maybe if there are more people like you then it wouldn't be as crowded anymore. I'd say good riddance!