Actually, I appreciate some of this clarification. Jobs' vision and the small enthusiast crowd did save Apple, that's indisputable.
However, the market has grown so much from when Apple was selling 16 million devices a year in total when Jobs took over into until just before the iPod eruption, that even if every AI reader influenced 100 people now, it wouldn't make much of a difference, if anything notable at all. While I appreciate the kind words about the my articles, I am under no illusion that I have any market sway or anything along that line.
To be clear, I don't think you're forum-hostile. I like differences of opinion, as an opinion not challenged is worthless. Just about everybody here, including myself, periodically need reminding of the community rules to maintain order so we can keep doing our jobs, so a redirection is sometimes in order.
Anyway, I've got a hell of a head-cold, and I think this is going to be a busy week. Until tomorrow.
We disagree. Taylor Swift has an outsized effect. You have an outsized effect (obviously not Taylor Swift level). You ripple to many others. Apple didn't react to the trashcan disapproval because it in anyway had meaningful income effect, or was an undercurrent of the masses. They (finally) got that the enthusiast/pro market matters, and those people saved it once, and have an outsized effect.
And it's important to note that the effect isnt singular. Not just with regard to sales. But with taste. With direction. The DVD vs CD burn issue wasnt a "masses" thing. Granma wasnt going to make her own DVD or burn her own CD. It was enthusiasts that forced apple to look more at music... which led apple by it's nose to the iPod and iTunes store, and ultimately begot the iphone. The effect is beyond sales. It's one of culture as well, which is more important. If apple stays on course with the culture of the the people that "get it" they are more likely to land on the products that "get it".
Agreed. Fairminded good people can and likely should have different opinions. It might be a messy, but ultimately, to me at least, is a good thing.
I think flu's are starting up in earnest this season by way of subway sniffles count/proxy. Hope your headcold gets better soon Mike.
I think Angela has been a great asset to the Apple team, specifically in Retail. There was a LOT of naysayers when she first came onboard, and I think she's proven them all wrong. I have to think it's no easy task taking something as successful as an Apple Retail Store and keeping it successful, especially when the bulk of retail is faltering badly. At least Apple is trying new, fresh ideas in retail. They're keeping the appearance of the stores current and not just keeping the original look. This I think is what gets a lot of retail in trouble and then when they realize it, it's too late and they don't have the capital to redo all of their stores.
Apple Stores are still a huge hit no matter how to put it. They're always full of people and they sell tons of product there. You can't say someone isn't doing a very good job with these kinds of results. Maybe you don't like the way things are going, but that doesn't mean she's not going a good job.
Stores today are so much different than they were when Apple Stores first came out. Apple is so much bigger today than it was back in 2001.
Well said, Mac. I agree. I think she's done a tremendous job. The stores look better and better each year. I know it's a relatively small thing, but I like the inclusion of the trees and plants inside the stores. (I know not in all stores). I think she brings a certain style and elegance to the brand.
Best.
I think not being a techie is an advantage. She thinks people, not gadgets – that is why the retail chain is a success.
Agreed, Rayz. I think we're looking at the next Apple CEO.
I think the results of the Apple Store speak for themselves. The most profitable store-feet in the entire industry, millions of visitors, extremely high customer satisfaction. TrollPuftZombie has issues with reality, not Ahrendts.
I agree with the comment about her non-techniness being an asset, because it means you focus on people. Her smartest move was that she didn't try and put her ego all over the place; she looked at what was working and left it alone, and made changes to make the place more of a gathering place with low sales pressure, which customers really respond to. Sure, you definitely get greeted when you go into one, but I've always found friendly employees with candid advice and the freedom (where available) to just hang out in the lounge area or play with the machines by myself when I wanted.
So far I've really liked the changes, including the improved shelving, the massive video display, the carefully-but-subtly organised sections of the store, the easier check-out, the always-willing-to-answer-a-question attitude, the increased "green" reminders -- and in stores that have them, the lounge areas and auditoriums where you can just chill if you like. I've visited stores in many, many US and Canadian cities over the years, and my main complaint is that you never see a sale price at an Apple Store, even on third-party stuff. The bargain-hunter in me doesn't like that, but that's what B&H is for, people.
Wow, another Skully era post. Since sales went up with Skully at the helm, clearly all his decisions that lead to a horrible version of apple that almost went bankrupt until Steve came back, well they were great. Because sales mean it's all right. It's all right that the Mac Pro hasnt been updated in 5 years. Sales are up. It's all right that the mac mini hasnt been upgraded. Sales are up. Hey, when they didnt listen and kept screens small, sales were really good, so all that was all right.
And you know, people experiencing (at least in NYC) that the apple stores are the new DMV, no need to listen to that. Sales are up. Skully was totally right after all. Thanks Chasm for clarifying the that historically relevant metric.
Okay, so I was right. Read the commenting guidelines, and do it now. You're getting a lot closer to that line. Disagreement, even spirited, is fine. But, if you're planning on escalating and are going to be an ass, you're out.
Anyway, you might want to re-read the history of Apple's decline, and what led to it, in the '90s. It isn't as cut and dried as you think, and there's no one villain to point to. Sculley wasn't really the issue and made a few decisions in a changing market that led to the some problems, yes.
Spindler and Amelio were the *really* bad decision makers, and were reactionary to the market instead of predictive. The entire industry is way, way different now than it even was in 2010. Apple, since Jobs' return and now with Cook is not just skating to where the puck is going, they make the shot in the first place -- so your comparison and expectation of imminent doom is a little strange.
Other than you deeming me to be an ass, i dont see how I'm "escalating" other than disagreeing with someone. Someone you had NO ISSUE with Chasm calling me to be a troll. Or that Clair called me and others morons. Clearly they were engaging in substantive debate with their posts, all within the guidelines, natch. I'm sure you'll pay equal attention to them and give them stern talking too's too, right? It's like wacko scene out of "anger management" where youre just making conclusions for the outcome you want.
Puhleeze spare me your patronizing. I know my history and what lead to what, and there is a fair chance I will have forgotten more about it than you will know in this lifetime.
Noting that Spindler and Amelio were stewards towards the crash diminishes the rotten trajectory Skully sent apple on. Steve's own words on it: "what can I say, I hired the wrong guy... He destroyed everything Id spent 10 years working for." See at the 3:44 marker
The hell of Apple Retail as it is today started in the fact that Angela is not a techie. Her lack of appreciation of what distinguished Apple products in use as compared to the fleets of crap in the marketplace prevents her from understanding what made Apple special for so many years and prevents her from weaving that into the in-store experience and building that value in for new Apple customers. She got the image of it, but didn’t understand the differentiating function of it. That has lead to her dealing with the Apple experience as nothing more than a bigger horse than she had before to flog in the race to profits, because that’s all she knows. She does nothing to nurture the the ken of Apple but pay it lip service, while her willing sycophants bow to her. Angela’s Apple is riding on the memory of what it was, rather than growing its approachability for the user, which is the only thing that matters. Angela is not a “Crazy One” who “Think(s) Different”. Her new store design concept is a straight rip-off of Ron Johnson’s intended make-over of JC Penny’s. Her calling it a “Town Square” is just another outcome of that fact. There’s nothing appealing in the idea of going to hang out there to see what’s happening “Today At Apple”. What’s happening is customers waiting for service confused about what’s going on, crying or screaming kids running around, while the money is shoveled into the till at an astonishing rate, but with no answer to their iCloud questions available until (maybe) next Tuesday, or if they go home and call Apple Telephone Support.
Ask any customer who has stood in a six deep line at a mall location on a Tuesday afternoon just to get in the door to buy an overpriced iPhone case just how great Apple Retail really is. Ask someone who just bought a new Mac portable how they felt about walking out the door without a bag because the supply has run out. Go to a store and try to purchase a simple functional case for your new iPad. They have no $50 or $60 answer nearly as good as the original and highly functional iPad case to respond to the simple utility $10 buys on Amazon. Ask any longer-term employee how they feel about the dwindling team serving customers with more and more complicated issues about the stress and anxiety they come with and leave with every shift. The supposedly beautiful stores are not a place for a luxury tech welcoming experience. They are a purgatory of ill-spent capital and indulged ego to be endured.
Should the day come that Angela ascends to the CEO position, it will be the end of the Apple so many have loved for so long. It will become just another company making a boatload of bucks on promises remembered but never fulfilled, just as her leadership of the sales effort has already brought to the stores she has been entrusted with. Such a pity.
The hell of Apple Retail as it is today started in the fact that Angela is not a techie. Her lack of appreciation of what distinguished Apple products in use as compared to the fleets of crap in the marketplace prevents her from understanding what made Apple special for so many years and prevents her from weaving that into the in-store experience and building that value in for new Apple customers. She got the image of it, but didn’t understand the differentiating function of it. That has lead to her dealing with the Apple experience as nothing more than a bigger horse than she had before to flog in the race to profits, because that’s all she knows. She does nothing to nurture the the ken of Apple but pay it lip service, while her willing sycophants bow to her. Angela’s Apple is riding on the memory of what it was, rather than growing its approachability for the user, which is the only thing that matters. Angela is not a “Crazy One” who “Think(s) Different”. Her new store design concept is a straight rip-off of Ron Johnson’s intended make-over of JC Penny’s. Her calling it a “Town Square” is just another outcome of that fact. There’s nothing appealing in the idea of going to hang out there to see what’s happening “Today At Apple”. What’s happening is customers waiting for service confused about what’s going on, crying or screaming kids running around, while the money is shoveled into the till at an astonishing rate, but with no answer to their iCloud questions available until (maybe) next Tuesday, or if they go home and call Apple Telephone Support.
Ask any customer who has stood in a six deep line at a mall location on a Tuesday afternoon just to get in the door to buy an overpriced iPhone case just how great Apple Retail really is. Ask someone who just bought a new Mac portable how they felt about walking out the door without a bag because the supply has run out. Go to a store and try to purchase a simple functional case for your new iPad. They have no $50 or $60 answer nearly as good as the original and highly functional iPad case to respond to the simple utility $10 buys on Amazon. Ask any longer-term employee how they feel about the dwindling team serving customers with more and more complicated issues about the stress and anxiety they come with and leave with every shift. The supposedly beautiful stores are not a place for a luxury tech welcoming experience. They are a purgatory of ill-spent capital and indulged ego to be endured.
Should the day come that Angela ascends to the CEO position, it will be the end of the Apple so many have loved for so long. It will become just another company making a boatload of bucks on promises remembered but never fulfilled, just as her leadership of the sales effort has already brought to the stores she has been entrusted with. Such a pity.
Not just DED, Jimmy Iovine, Dr. Dre and Eddie Cue,
The one-post morons have infected Angela too! Run!!!
I don't agree with what she has done to the Apple Stores and I don't agree with what Tim Cook has done to Apple. Both are on the same page focusing on investors, image and PR and should be in different positions. Both are non-techies but are good for the investors.
And the really interesting thing is that you and @StayPuftZombie, with all your venom against Apple’s present leadership team, have absolutely no place to go. There is NO alternative to Apple for you based on your own pontifications about how a tech company should be run. Where will you go? What will you buy? A Dell running Windows? I think not. No, you’ll bitch and complain and then stick to Apple products like you always have.
I don't agree with what she has done to the Apple Stores and I don't agree with what Tim Cook has done to Apple. Both are on the same page focusing on investors, image and PR and should be in different positions. Both are non-techies but are good for the investors.
And the really interesting thing is that you and @StayPuftZombie, with all your venom against Apple’s present leadership team, have absolutely no place to go. There is NO alternative to Apple for you based on your own pontifications about how a tech company should be run. Where will you go? What will you buy? A Dell running Windows? I think not. No, you’ll bitch and complain and then stick to Apple products like you always have.
What I don't understand is, there is almost 0 competition to Apple Stores.
Apple Town Squares, but when Microsoft and Samsung try to copy the "failed" Apple Stores they look like Ghost Towns.
Angela has added some plants, pulled the "Store" off the stores' names, removed lanyards, killed the genius bar and added logistical chaos and worse training to the stores. That's the sum total, other than collecting gobs of ill earned money, of her years of tenure at apple.
She took what was for many the best retail experience ever, where an apple store was something you enjoyed visiting, and turned it into the DMV. Now instead of heading for the genius bar for your appointment, you start with game of human pinball.
Find an apple employee, with no lanyard as a visual cue, that's holding an iPad to get to your appointment. When you find the first one, you ask for your appointment, and they inform you, theyre not the person for that and send you to another one. You go to that employee that you think they pointed to, but they're not it either. Finally you get to the person with the appointment clip board, and they play, let's pick a table. They send you to some random table and log your name/position. Now, the genius plays Apple Store Maps. The "genius" now goes around the table asking for you (mispronouncing your name at times), and sometimes goes to the wrong table because the position was logged wrong. Or a person misunderstood what table they are to meet at. All this wastes both your and the apple employees time in pinball'ing around when everyone could just have instead, clearly and easily, met at the genius bar. Then, when the apple employee finally ends their game of hunt-and-go-seek, you are rewarded by talking to a 'genius' that no longer talks to you like you understand something and 'jumps to the chase' but instead, they walk you through a script process, because now the vast number of geniuses have become equivalent script kiddies. No brain, all script. Oh, and you do this all through intolerable crowds of other now grumpy store goers.
In contrast, Steve Job's created genius bar was not only a signature feature that she destroyed, but something that calmed not caused store logistical chaos. You just head to the back for your appointment, simple. No DMV zombie human pinball hordes bouncing off each other from 'Angela's DMV Apple Emporium' 'improvements'. Also, it kept all the grumpy people with problems away from the people shopping, preventing the spread of DMV'itus throughout the store.
In other words, the apple store, the highest earning per square foot retail store in the world that Angela inherted, has been turned into the apple DMV, by angela, that I (and many others https://dailycaller.com/2018/03/15/apple-store-dmv/) want to avoid at all costs.
My fear is apple managment (and now with the help of appleinsider) are positioning angela as the next CEO apparent, which will be a disaster of the likes to make us long for the days of Skully.I
I can't believe this woman hasn't been canned years ago. The apple stores are a mess. I don't see what is so special about a room with tables and products placed on them. All the stores are the same and rather sterile. With all the confusion I am sure they lose sales because people walk out in frustration. Bring back the good old cash register.
But no, Apple would never listen, they are too cool.
"I was a young president. Here was this young British guy who just started there. He was really cute, and God, he was so talented. All the lights were off in the entire building, and he was sitting there all by himself at 9 or 10 at night, sketching. I went down this dark hall, and this little light was on in this little office. So I just peeked my head in, and that's how we initially got to know each other. I looked in his eyes, and I trusted him."
I don't agree with what she has done to the Apple Stores and I don't agree with what Tim Cook has done to Apple. Both are on the same page focusing on investors, image and PR and should be in different positions. Both are non-techies but are good for the investors.
And the really interesting thing is that you and @StayPuftZombie, with all your venom against Apple’s present leadership team, have absolutely no place to go. There is NO alternative to Apple for you based on your own pontifications about how a tech company should be run. Where will you go? What will you buy? A Dell running Windows? I think not. No, you’ll bitch and complain and then stick to Apple products like you always have.
What I don't understand is, there is almost 0 competition to Apple Stores.
Apple Town Squares, but when Microsoft and Samsung try to copy the "failed" Apple Stores they look like Ghost Towns.
So what are they complaining about?
Good points, Claire. I remember (some years ago, now) when Apple stores usurped Tiffany's as the leader in the all important Retail Metric, 'Sales per square foot!' This when a good portion of 'brick & mortar' stores are seriously challenged, to say the least. I do remember the Gateway stores. Ugh.
The detractors here need to read more...98% of companies go out of business (eventually) when the founder dies. Essentially, most 'hired' CEO's slowly run the companies into the ground.
Enduring companies like Ford and Boeing, etc., are the exception, not the rule. We are so fortunate to have a CEO of the quality of Tim Cook. And it is nothing short of astounding!
Another fact: 88% (440) of the Fortune 500 companies in 1950 are completely out of business today.
Sorry, don't mean sound like I know everything, but people here (not you Claire) spout opinions not based in fact.
Basically people don't like her because A, she's a woman and B, Steve didn't choose her, Tim did. It's only the old geezers who are stuck in the "good ole days" era that don't like anything that Apple is doing nowadays.
I don't agree with what she has done to the Apple Stores and I don't agree with what Tim Cook has done to Apple. Both are on the same page focusing on investors, image and PR and should be in different positions. Both are non-techies but are good for the investors.
And the really interesting thing is that you and @StayPuftZombie, with all your venom against Apple’s present leadership team, have absolutely no place to go. There is NO alternative to Apple for you based on your own pontifications about how a tech company should be run. Where will you go? What will you buy? A Dell running Windows? I think not. No, you’ll bitch and complain and then stick to Apple products like you always have.
That is crushingly accurate. The 2nd choices are just craptacular. While Surface hardware has gotten really good/interesting (the surfacebook), the software is still a pain-smoothie.
But to recount a little history, when things got bad enough on the Mac back in the late 80s early 90s, I was forced and did go to NeXT (which was not only a god send and step up, I still miss parts of it as still being better than OSX in many ways to this day) and NT (god helped me).
Today, I'd probably realistically amble along with a hackintosh for a few years (assuming they mess up the new mac pro and make it an unupgradable blight like the iMac Pro and macbook pros) to figure out what to do. Maybe some linux variant. Some that mimic NeXTstep like GNUSTEP (and can even run some mac apps) and some that mimic the mac. But to your point, 2nd place is far away.
That said, just because the alternatives are garbage doesnt mean you laud apple for their bad decisions and moves. Precisely because I want them to do well. And again, the 90s were evidence that when things do get bad enough, people, even long time fans, did abandon apple.
Basically people don't like her because A, she's a woman and B, Steve didn't choose her, Tim did. It's only the old geezers who are stuck in the "good ole days" era that don't like anything that Apple is doing nowadays.
A lot of truth in that, Mac. Especially the 'A' part.
Basically people don't like her because A, she's a woman and B, Steve didn't choose her, Tim did. It's only the old geezers who are stuck in the "good ole days" era that don't like anything that Apple is doing nowadays.
So easy to contradict your point, Steve chose both Skully and Tim, and those were a mistakes as well (one of which he himslelf aknowledges and I supplied in video form no less). Not to mention I actually like her. She did an amazing job as CEO of Burrbury, and her interviews before Apple, she was really good. But the facts are, the stores have gone down hill under her tenure. The human pinball DMV atmosphere is all her. She just blew it.
But I'm sure you wont let those little facts get in the way of a good hateful narrative to try to hide that you cannot argue on the merits. Much better to paint everyone you dont agree with the broad stroke of sexist, natch.
When you cannot argue the merits, move to ad homonyms. Thanks for evincing to the world that you have no substantive point.
When she was first hired, I found her kind of inarticulate in interviews, and her poor grammar seemed like a bad sign. Nobody’s perfect, of course, and the guy she replaced was completely clueless, but it made me nervous. Apple seems to be galloping along nicely, so maybe my worries were unfounded, although my personal experiences in Apple stores over the last few years have been at times extremely frustrating (and similar to those described by StayPuft). But all of these experiences have been in a couple of busy stores in New York City, so I hope and believe that they’re not representative of the average. It’s also worth noting that Apple has a lot more customers (and stores) than they did even five years ago, so there’s that much more to manage.
I don’t get why people need a lanyard to know who is an employee. Employees are wearing blue shirts with the white Apple logo. Not difficult to find. And at the front of the store most of them are holding an iPad and greet you when you walk in.
I don’t get why people need a lanyard to know who is an employee. Employees are wearing blue shirts with the white Apple logo. Not difficult to find. And at the front of the store most of them are holding an iPad and greet you when you walk in.
Right. And long before Angela there were “point people” at the front of the store and for the Genius Bar. How many years has it been where one would have to check in with the point person and then wait for their technician? It’s been this way for a long time and I don’t know how else it would work.
Are we expecting to just walk in at random and expect every available person should be able to offer the help we need? If so, where else does that happen? I don’t go to a car dealership and expect the salespeople to perform the maintenance. I don’t go to the perfume counter at Saks when I’m trying to find a new blouse for my wife.
Comparing an Apple Store experience to a DMV experience just comes across like not having spent time in either.
My my last time at the Genius Bar was in February. I was on vacation and accidentally took my iPhone into the pool. I made a walk-in appointment at the closest Apple Store. They told me the wait would be 45 minutes. 20 minutes later I was working with “my” technician and left the store with a replacement phone in under the 45 minutes I was initially told. I’m not sure how that qualifies as bad.
I can't believe this woman hasn't been canned years ago. The apple stores are a mess.
Ha ha. Spoken like a true curmudgeon. The Apple stores are 'dynamic', not a mess. They may not suit really old folks who are confused easily by movement and noise, but I don't see many confused looking people in Apple Stores below 60 years of age. People (above), complain about rows of tables... yes? and what would you like instead of tables where products can be tested and played with freely for as long as you like?
What I love about the Apple Stores is how incredibly quickly I can get out of them. Not because I don't like to be there but because it takes so little time to be served. The Genius appointments run like clockwork, relatively speaking, and that is amazing.
As for Ahrendts' changes to the stores, I have nothing bad to say. She has stuck to the winning formula and simply added and modulated in order to keep the stores fresh and relevant. There is no other retail experience that comes close imo. At least not for a huge international tech gadget brand. I am old enough to remember tech stores before the Apple store - you know the type that John Browett presided over.. UGH!.
Comments
And it's important to note that the effect isnt singular. Not just with regard to sales. But with taste. With direction. The DVD vs CD burn issue wasnt a "masses" thing. Granma wasnt going to make her own DVD or burn her own CD. It was enthusiasts that forced apple to look more at music... which led apple by it's nose to the iPod and iTunes store, and ultimately begot the iphone. The effect is beyond sales. It's one of culture as well, which is more important. If apple stays on course with the culture of the the people that "get it" they are more likely to land on the products that "get it".
Agreed. Fairminded good people can and likely should have different opinions. It might be a messy, but ultimately, to me at least, is a good thing.
I think flu's are starting up in earnest this season by way of subway sniffles count/proxy. Hope your headcold gets better soon Mike.
Agreed, Rayz. I think we're looking at the next Apple CEO.
I agree Claire. I like her, too.
Puhleeze spare me your patronizing. I know my history and what lead to what, and there is a fair chance I will have forgotten more about it than you will know in this lifetime.
Noting that Spindler and Amelio were stewards towards the crash diminishes the rotten trajectory Skully sent apple on. Steve's own words on it: "what can I say, I hired the wrong guy... He destroyed everything Id spent 10 years working for." See at the 3:44 marker
Ask any customer who has stood in a six deep line at a mall location on a Tuesday afternoon just to get in the door to buy an overpriced iPhone case just how great Apple Retail really is. Ask someone who just bought a new Mac portable how they felt about walking out the door without a bag because the supply has run out. Go to a store and try to purchase a simple functional case for your new iPad. They have no $50 or $60 answer nearly as good as the original and highly functional iPad case to respond to the simple utility $10 buys on Amazon. Ask any longer-term employee how they feel about the dwindling team serving customers with more and more complicated issues about the stress and anxiety they come with and leave with every shift. The supposedly beautiful stores are not a place for a luxury tech welcoming experience. They are a purgatory of ill-spent capital and indulged ego to be endured.
Should the day come that Angela ascends to the CEO position, it will be the end of the Apple so many have loved for so long. It will become just another company making a boatload of bucks on promises remembered but never fulfilled, just as her leadership of the sales effort has already brought to the stores she has been entrusted with. Such a pity.
The one-post morons have infected Angela too! Run!!!
P.S. "Idolitry"
Apple Town Squares, but when Microsoft and Samsung try to copy the "failed" Apple Stores they look like Ghost Towns.
So what are they complaining about?
But no, Apple would never listen, they are too cool.
Reads like a paragraph from a Cosmo article...
The detractors here need to read more...98% of companies go out of business (eventually) when the founder dies. Essentially, most 'hired' CEO's slowly run the companies into the ground.
Enduring companies like Ford and Boeing, etc., are the exception, not the rule. We are so fortunate to have a CEO of the quality of Tim Cook. And it is nothing short of astounding!
Another fact: 88% (440) of the Fortune 500 companies in 1950 are completely out of business today.
Sorry, don't mean sound like I know everything, but people here (not you Claire) spout opinions not based in fact.
Best.
That is crushingly accurate. The 2nd choices are just craptacular. While Surface hardware has gotten really good/interesting (the surfacebook), the software is still a pain-smoothie.
But to recount a little history, when things got bad enough on the Mac back in the late 80s early 90s, I was forced and did go to NeXT (which was not only a god send and step up, I still miss parts of it as still being better than OSX in many ways to this day) and NT (god helped me).
Today, I'd probably realistically amble along with a hackintosh for a few years (assuming they mess up the new mac pro and make it an unupgradable blight like the iMac Pro and macbook pros) to figure out what to do. Maybe some linux variant. Some that mimic NeXTstep like GNUSTEP (and can even run some mac apps) and some that mimic the mac. But to your point, 2nd place is far away.
That said, just because the alternatives are garbage doesnt mean you laud apple for their bad decisions and moves. Precisely because I want them to do well. And again, the 90s were evidence that when things do get bad enough, people, even long time fans, did abandon apple.
But I'm sure you wont let those little facts get in the way of a good hateful narrative to try to hide that you cannot argue on the merits. Much better to paint everyone you dont agree with the broad stroke of sexist, natch.
When you cannot argue the merits, move to ad homonyms. Thanks for evincing to the world that you have no substantive point.
Are we expecting to just walk in at random and expect every available person should be able to offer the help we need? If so, where else does that happen? I don’t go to a car dealership and expect the salespeople to perform the maintenance. I don’t go to the perfume counter at Saks when I’m trying to find a new blouse for my wife.
Comparing an Apple Store experience to a DMV experience just comes across like not having spent time in either.
My my last time at the Genius Bar was in February. I was on vacation and accidentally took my iPhone into the pool. I made a walk-in appointment at the closest Apple Store. They told me the wait would be 45 minutes. 20 minutes later I was working with “my” technician and left the store with a replacement phone in under the 45 minutes I was initially told. I’m not sure how that qualifies as bad.
As for Ahrendts' changes to the stores, I have nothing bad to say. She has stuck to the winning formula and simply added and modulated in order to keep the stores fresh and relevant. There is no other retail experience that comes close imo. At least not for a huge international tech gadget brand. I am old enough to remember tech stores before the Apple store - you know the type that John Browett presided over.. UGH!.