I had to visit the Apple Genius Bar for the first time today. The reason was that my left shift key on the MacBook Pro wasn’t working well. I was dreading having to mail in the machine, so I was worried that the guy behind the desk would be able to do jack.
After setting up a time via the “concierge” they managed to bypass me, although I was there in the store. I wasn’t allowed to sit at the bar when my name was #1 because that wasn’t done:
“Take a step away sir. We will call you later”
The experience was a little like seeing the IT guy from the british version of The Office. Man they thought they were important. Geniuses.
SIDENOTE: I still laugh at the word genius. A well known Java speaker told me that he was fantastic at Trivial Pursuit and had never lost a game of the “Genius” edition ;)
The good news was that they could take the macbook pro backstage (this was the first they had seen from the public) and were able to take apart the new keys and fix a broken bit of plastic that was causing the problems.
One of the non-geniuses had a great service ethic, and I ended up heading out with a 30″. Finally, I can power it. Finally, I have my ideal dev environment.
- Left side of screen: development
- Right side of screen: testing (e.g. testing in a browser, running the Swing app, whatever)
Mmmm
February 24th, 2006 at 5:31 pm
Yeah, multiple screens are great. I’m thinking of shipping an extra monitor with the next version of TestNG :-)
–
Cedric
February 24th, 2006 at 7:43 pm
…the description of the “genius” who said “step away” reminded me of the character played by Jimmy Fallon on Saturday Night Live: “Nick Burns, Your Company’s Computer Guy”…
http://snltranscripts.jt.org/99/99fnickburns.phtml
Cheers, man, Ajaxian is the best. Hoping to get out to the Bay Area for Ajax Experience Conference.
-Mark Holton
holtsblog.blogspot.com
February 26th, 2006 at 8:51 am
Nothing makes me hate you more than hearing about buying your 30″ cinema display while getting your brand-new MacBook Pro fixed… bastard… :-)
August 4th, 2006 at 8:39 pm
I also had my first experience with the Genius the other day when I brought my MacBook in for the discoloration problem a certain group of the newest models have. I couldn’t understand why, two months after purchase, the palm rests were looking like the machine was 2 years, instead of 2 months old. A knowledgeable friend clued me into the discoloration fiasco. My first question for the Genius was “If Apple knew which serial numbers were affected with the problem, and my MacBook is registered (which it is) why wouldn’t the company send me a message advising me to take the machine into an Apple store for repair?” That was a question the Genius wasn’t prepared to answer….I had to leave it with them for several days…but they did take care of the problem. I have to say that it was an odd experience to have to make an advance appointment with the “concierge” to bring my computer to the “Genius” bar.
June 26th, 2007 at 3:29 am
I didn’t have any concierge problems with this “Genius” thing by the way :P