It's actually Apple's reaction to a unionization effort.. I forget which one but I think it was in 2014. At that time, Genius Bar employees were a relatively s

It's actually Apple's reaction to a unionization effort.. I forget which one but I think it was in 2014. At that time, Genius Bar employees were a relatively skilled workforce, and couldn't be immediately replaced because they needed months of training to be function, and years of experience to be really successful. That meant they had actual negotiation power with the store, and with corporate. Ever since then Apple has been pushing to make the Genius position lower skilled and easier to replace. Genius discretion and knowledge has been replaced with flow charts on iPads, and a reduction in the amount of genius-bar serviceable parts in the devices.