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I really hate Apple Stores... wanted to go on a bit of a longer rant here... I hate the physical stores, I hate the App Store. 1) Lost my power cord while tra

I really hate Apple Stores... wanted to go on a bit of a longer rant here... I hate the physical stores, I hate the App Store. 1) Lost my power cord while traveling, so I thought I'd jump into the Apple Store and pick up a new one. Should be an in and out thing... took 1.5 hours of me just waiting around the store for them to sell me a power cord. This was in Sydney. Once I actually got to talk to someone, it still took 20 minutes. So painful. "Genius" is Apple for happy little idiot. 2) Tried to buy 8 laptops for a dev team. Bought them all online, went to pick them up... credit card cleared, no errors or messages on the website. Get to the store, "We're sorry, Sir. We can't give you more than 3 laptops per day." Uh? So you want me to come back once a day for 2 more days to pick up these laptops? "Yes Sir, that's our policy." It took a call to some regional corporate sales clown to get them to hand me 8 laptops the same day I paid for them. 3) Every try and roll out software to a team using the App Store as a source for any of that software? Is it the company Apple Account? Is it their Apple Account? Which account has the stupid software licenses bound to it, and how do I set it so I can use the company Apple Account to install the software, but not leave my master password for the company saved on their computer... I don't want to have to give them that password just so they can keep their system up-to-date... rather they just log in and expense software... nope, it's a cluster trying to keep it all updated once you have more than one account providing software. Apple does not care in the slightest about corporate users. I should have some sort of provisioning interface that lets me grant rights to use software licenses I own to their personal accounts... that's probably not pretty enough for Apple though.

givinguflac 10y ago
1.) Maybe that's a Sydney Store issue? Never experienced anything close to that myself. 2.) Yeah that's dumb. Maybe it's a stocking thing since it's Australia? Never heard of anything like that in the US. 3.) Almost everything on the mac store exists outside of it as well, but I agree it is somewhat designed more for consumers. You could use deployment tools if the source isn't App Store, or a 'family' account that shares purchases among users. Though I agree that's not ideal. Supposedly they're improving management with some new tools similar to how apps can be managed on iOS.
- dbg31415 10y ago
  Was only in the Sydney store that one time, it took 1.5 hours to get a power cord. The line to get service was running out of the store. This was a few years ago, they had tremendous demand since -- if I recall -- they were the only Apple Store on the continent at the time. The max number of laptops was in Austin, the store in The Domain. Just looked into the Volume Purchase Program as suggested in another post... interesting but doesn't help me 3 years ago when I had the problem. Glad they've made moves to fix it.
  - jsjohnst 10y ago
    Apple VPP came out summer of 2011, so it existed 3 years ago.
    - dbg31415 10y ago
      Ok, well then I just didn't know about it then. And for that matter, Apple Support didn't tell me about it when I called them asking for solutions to the issue years ago. What I liked about HN was that it wasn't Reddit. You feel good because you can downvote me? Hooray, downvotes really add to the conversation. Not much point in talking with someone who thinks I'm lying. And I don't give a shit about internet points, so keep downvoting me.
      - jsjohnst 10y ago
        Whoever down voted you probably did so because of your attitude (just my guess, obviously I don't know for sure). I suggest reviewing the guidelines of HN!
jsjohnst 10y ago
1) I desperately want to call b/s on this, but guess that it's possible. Seriously, power cords are on the shelf in every Apple Store I've been too (over thirty, at this point, including a half dozen international stores). Using the Store app on your phone you can checkout without a human involved. Most don't know this I agree, but there is no way I'd wait that long if it were me. I'd be in someone's face in under a half an hour saying "either take my money or I'm walking out". 2) I've run into this before (with iPads rather than MBP), so I know you're likely factual here. The business sales person said if I'd ordered from him, wouldn't have been an issue, but consumer orders live by consumer rules. He did at least tell me that it was two per person, not two per order, so I called my friend who lived near Valley Faire Mall at the time and had him bring four of his kids. Yes, it was stupid, but myself, him, and each of the four kids walked out with two iPads each in our arms. 3) pro-tip: check out Apple VPP. Very easy to sign up for and trust me, it's everything you need and more to make this a smooth process to handle.
- cale250 10y ago
  Not all stores have anything but the most recent inventory on the shelves. My local one has the old style MagSafe 1 power adapter and iPad Air 2 leather cases, but they are in the back. Worse yet, when I asked about these things recently, an employee said "sorry, we don't have those anymore." I didn't believe him, so at that point I had to wait another 15 minutes for a manager to become available who knew where these things were.
  - jsjohnst 10y ago
    Mind if I ask which store this is? Genuinely curious as even the smallest store I've been to had all types of power cables on the wall. Really wondering why your local store is so different.
    - cale250 10y ago
      Des Moines, Iowa, at the Jordan Creek mall. The MagSafe could have been temporarily out of stock on the shelf for all I knew, though. They've shuffled things around a few times and I don't visit often - around once a year to replace a frayed power cable.

givinguflac 10y ago

1.) Maybe that's a Sydney Store issue? Never experienced anything close to that myself. 2.) Yeah that's dumb. Maybe it's a stocking thing since it's Australia? Never heard of anything like that in the US. 3.) Almost everything on the mac store exists outside of it as well, but I agree it is somewhat designed more for consumers. You could use deployment tools if the source isn't App Store, or a 'family' account that shares purchases among users. Though I agree that's not ideal. Supposedly they're improving management with some new tools similar to how apps can be managed on iOS.

dbg31415 10y ago
Was only in the Sydney store that one time, it took 1.5 hours to get a power cord. The line to get service was running out of the store. This was a few years ago, they had tremendous demand since -- if I recall -- they were the only Apple Store on the continent at the time. The max number of laptops was in Austin, the store in The Domain. Just looked into the Volume Purchase Program as suggested in another post... interesting but doesn't help me 3 years ago when I had the problem. Glad they've made moves to fix it.
- jsjohnst 10y ago
  Apple VPP came out summer of 2011, so it existed 3 years ago.
  - dbg31415 10y ago
    Ok, well then I just didn't know about it then. And for that matter, Apple Support didn't tell me about it when I called them asking for solutions to the issue years ago. What I liked about HN was that it wasn't Reddit. You feel good because you can downvote me? Hooray, downvotes really add to the conversation. Not much point in talking with someone who thinks I'm lying. And I don't give a shit about internet points, so keep downvoting me.
    - jsjohnst 10y ago
      Whoever down voted you probably did so because of your attitude (just my guess, obviously I don't know for sure). I suggest reviewing the guidelines of HN!

jsjohnst 10y ago

1) I desperately want to call b/s on this, but guess that it's possible. Seriously, power cords are on the shelf in every Apple Store I've been too (over thirty, at this point, including a half dozen international stores). Using the Store app on your phone you can checkout without a human involved. Most don't know this I agree, but there is no way I'd wait that long if it were me. I'd be in someone's face in under a half an hour saying "either take my money or I'm walking out". 2) I've run into this before (with iPads rather than MBP), so I know you're likely factual here. The business sales person said if I'd ordered from him, wouldn't have been an issue, but consumer orders live by consumer rules. He did at least tell me that it was two per person, not two per order, so I called my friend who lived near Valley Faire Mall at the time and had him bring four of his kids. Yes, it was stupid, but myself, him, and each of the four kids walked out with two iPads each in our arms. 3) pro-tip: check out Apple VPP. Very easy to sign up for and trust me, it's everything you need and more to make this a smooth process to handle.

cale250 10y ago
Not all stores have anything but the most recent inventory on the shelves. My local one has the old style MagSafe 1 power adapter and iPad Air 2 leather cases, but they are in the back. Worse yet, when I asked about these things recently, an employee said "sorry, we don't have those anymore." I didn't believe him, so at that point I had to wait another 15 minutes for a manager to become available who knew where these things were.
- jsjohnst 10y ago
  Mind if I ask which store this is? Genuinely curious as even the smallest store I've been to had all types of power cables on the wall. Really wondering why your local store is so different.
  - cale250 10y ago
    Des Moines, Iowa, at the Jordan Creek mall. The MagSafe could have been temporarily out of stock on the shelf for all I knew, though. They've shuffled things around a few times and I don't visit often - around once a year to replace a frayed power cable.