[ElkGroveDan]

and the store got crowded right at the beginning. There were already people there with appointments

Sounds like lots of people with lots of problems. Apple devices are the only retail products I know of that require that much attention.

[Star Traveler]

Appointments to the Genius Bar range from being shown how to do something in one of the apps, to simply a “question and answer session” (which I’ve done before, with an appointment), to being shown something like how to use Apple Photo Library (something new in iOS 8), to checking out if something has a hardware issue, to fixing a software or file corruption issue.

IN OTHER WORDS ... it’s “customer service” across the board.

AND not everyone who was there (getting the store filled up with customers) was a problem. A good number of them were there for new product, too (from what I could see).

AN EXAMPLE of the “question and answer session” that I did before at the Genius Bar, was for me to distinguish between the two methods of backup on the iPad, and get into some technical details about it. I already knew “how to do it” ... so my questions weren’t about how to get it to function ... they were about some technical aspects of “how it worked” ... and they did a fine job in answering my questions!

[Swordmaker]

Sounds like lots of people with lots of problems. Apple devices are the only retail products I know of that require that much attention.

Nice try. . . But Apple has a 98% customer satisfaction rate and only 1.7% report problems.

[BunnySlippers]

Apple leads in national customer satisfaction surveys of ALL products ... Not just computers.

They really are responsive and helpful.