Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

Contrast this with my recent experience at the 14th Street and Fifth Avenue Apple Stores in New York.

Two weeks ago my Mac stopped booting. Made an appointment at the 14th Street Apple Store. Arrived 15 minutes early. Discovered there was a line to check in. That put you into a second line, the line to be seen by a "Genius". Forty-five minutes after my appointment time, I'm seen by someone with no intimate knowledge of my device. Laptop is checked in overnight.

Two days later, I receive my "fixed" Mac. SSD replaced, problem still there. Take it to the Fifth Avenue Apple Store at 4AM. This time I'm seen within 30 minutes of my appointment. "Genius" asks me to call phone support. Phone support insists Genius can solve the problem, asks to speak with Genius–nobody at store can find him. Thirty minutes later, phone support tells Genius what to do. Genius disappears into a back room, emerges 20 minutes later with the right tool. No clear answer as to what went wrong provided.

I am willing to pay for fast, smart solutions. Sometimes the brainpower is not available, and I accept that. Curious that I feel that brainpower would have been more amply available in the streets of Shenzhen than New York.

> Curious that I feel that brainpower would have been more amply available in the streets of Shenzhen than New York

...although perhaps not at 4AM, which is when you went? Not to play down the fact you had a pretty rough time of it, but the fact you could find someone to fix is at 4AM is to me an achievement in and of itself.

Valid hypothesis. Curiously, I have had better service then than during the crowded afternoons and evenings.

While my Mac was acting up, my iPhone also had issues. The first replacement I got had a logic board issue (continuous blue screen reboots). The evening Genius dismissed me after a restart. The 8AM Genius actually ran diagnostics.

Did you use http://getsupport.apple.com to book your appointment? You can choose Take-in to book the appointment. You can also schedule a call back.

4am!? Are stores in NYC open 24 hours a day?

The 5th Ave. store is open 24/7, 365 days a year.

https://www.apple.com/retail/fifthavenue/

xobs and I have a game we like to play when we live in Shenzhen for extended periods -- it's called "let's buy a soldering iron at 2AM". We'll hack until some stupid late hour and then get hungry, and go out to find street food and "something else", e.g. soldering iron, spare parts, phones, power adapters, etc. in the street markets of Shenzhen. So far, we have not been disappointed. That city simply does not sleep.

This is in part because the EU and US is awake during Shenzhen's nighttime, and if people waited until the morning to fill all the orders coming their way, they'd have to spend all day catching up.

That game sounds like a lot of fun. What's the trickiest/most obscure item you've been able to locate?

Actually I have a guy here in Shenzhen, also at Hua Qiang Bei who does board level repairs (with guarantee)on Macs for a fraction of what it costs to have the local Apple place swap out the whole thing. Shenzhen really is a Maker paradise.

Not curious at all. In Shenzhen and many parts of east Asia many young guys are really find of computers and hardware, and they are fighting hard for their daily bowl of rice.

You mean Ninth Avenue?

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