Plaidophile

So, my Apple TV won't finish booting anymore. I went through all the usual diagnostic procedures (as few as there are) and nothing worked. So I went to Apple's support site.

The site is pretty badly-organized when it comes to the Apple TV section. Trying to get information about actually contacting Apple for repair or replacement just led me around in circles. The "request repair or replacement" link sent me to a section of the site which had nothing Apple TV-related.

I live half a mile from an Apple Store, so I tried making a reservation at the "genius bar." There was no category which applied to Apple TV. So, today (since I have Columbus Day off) I headed over to the store in person with my Apple TV, and I went to their appointment registration kiosk, which had the exact same interface as on the website. One of the support people was finishing up with someone else and he asked me if I was waiting for an appointment, and I said I just had an Apple TV with a dead hard drive. He told me to talk to the concierge.

The snotty concierge (the fact their support section has a concierge is pretty damn snotty, and the concierge himself was also pretty snotty) asked me if I had a reservation. I said I didn't, and he told me I had to make one since they were completely booked. I asked him how to make a reservation for the Apple TV, and he said it had to be as a Mac. I said I just needed it replaced because the hard drive died, and he said that unless it was less than a month old it had to go through the genius bar. Meh.

I went back to their registration kiosk and I saw that there was an available Mac reservation for half an hour from then, but I decided I didn't actually want to hang around in that loud, crowded, obnoxious place for another half an hour so I didn't book it, thanks to the attitude of the people there to begin with. I left with my dead Apple TV.

On the way home I decided I'd try the phone support when I got home. So I looked for the phone support options... and the only phone support option is for AppleCare. Apparently, the only way to get product support for anything else anymore is via the Apple Store. Wonderful.

Whatever happened to 1-800-SOS-APPL? Apple used to have great customer support. I've gushed about them before, but it seems that in the last two years they've decided to focus all their support options on their retail presence (which, by the way, is far from universal... it's not a problem for me, but what about people who aren't close to an Apple store? if I'd had to drive an hour to get to one I'd have been pretty pissed off at the reservation system) and they've simultaneously tried to streamline their support process in a way that has left a lot of their products by the wayside.

My original plan was to go there and get my Apple TV repaired or replaced and, while I was there, also buy a new Airport Extreme, but because of the way things were set up and my resulting lack of caring, I'm pretty sure I'm not ever going to go there to buy anything. I've bought very few things at an actual Apple store, but I've bought a lot of Apple stuff online... but now that I know what my support options will be if something goes wrong, I'm pretty sure I'm going to cut back on what Apple products I buy that way too.

It's also pretty telling that there were signs everywhere regarding bricked iPhones (which blamed the user). I think Apple is trying to move in too many directions at once while trying to keep their support options simple, but meanwhile are trying to make users feel like it's a privilege to get basic customer support (concierge, reservations, big lines with people sitting on the floor looking annoyed) and generally I think Apple's attitude is going to become their undoing very soon.