As far as the actual Macintosh computer equipment and/or iPods — you’re not going to find discounts anywhere. There might be some promotions for a printer give-away or something like that, but the Apple Store has those at times, too.
I think I’ve seen some discounts from Amazon.com for Apple Macintosh computers. There’s a possibility.
As far as the accessories, you might get some good discounts “online” — like from Amazon.com or other online sources (watch out there, though — as some are not reliable vendors...)
So, accessories can be cheaper elsewhere, but computer equipment is going to be the same everywhere. I think you may get some preference for repairs and/or help if you buy it from the Apple Store, if you carry it in. If it’s a major repair, though, maybe not...
Regards,
Star Traveler
I didn’t say anything about discounts. The customer service was abysmal.
They actually wanted me to make an appointment with the “genius bar” to return a defective eight hundred dollar monitor THE DAY AFTER I BOUGHT IT!
Prior to that, I bought a scanner from them. When we opened the box, the glass was broken. Upon returning it, they told my wife “yeah, we’ve been having a problem with them coming in like that.”
Of course when I mentioned the scanner problem while returning the monitor the store manager made sure to tell me she’d never heard of such problems, so many times I began to feel like she was impugning my honesty.
It takes me 45 minutes to get to the apple store from my house. When I have to piss away 3 hours of my time to correct problems that shouldn’t exist in the first place, I expect some form of compensation besides “sorry for YOUR problem, have a nice day.”
Our CompUSA has an official apple rep. on staff that’s been there for five years and is a hell of a lot more appreciative of small business than the granola crunching, sandaled, half-wit they brought in from California to run the apple store.