Apple Store

Wasting time at the Genius Bar.

Feel free not to waste your time reading the following diatribe.

I had plenty of time to prepare, since there were no same-day appointments. I had plenty of time to photograph the view, since I had to wait half an hour beyond my appointment time before Genius Nate appeared. 

In the past, whenever I arrived at the Genius Bar it was mobbed. Today half the seats were empty. Yet the Geniuses were few, so there was a longer wait than I've ever experienced. Apple is clearly unhappy with what I consider its most terrific service. You can no longer get a Genius Bar appointment just by saying you want one. It took me several website visits and a few phone calls to get to a live person (I had to lie to get there) who could tell me how to get an appointment. The procedure (in which I had to lie and say it was a hardware problem) was so complicated that I documented it afterward. Thirteen clicks!

The reason I needed the Genius Bar appointment is that I hadn't been able to upload photos to Blip for three days running. The photos were on the Desktop, but Blip couldn't see them (though Microsoft Word, for instance, could). I was sure this was a glitch in Blip software, but did due diligence and checked with Apple before reporting to Blip. When I went to demonstrate the problem to Genius Nate, however, the problem had vanished ... for now. (Any computer geek will tell you that intermittent problems are the hardest to solve.)

But Genius Nate did clarify another Blip problem. On our computers, we all use Command-I for Italic, Command-B for Bold, Command-U for underline, right? This has been the industry standard since Apple produced the first graphic user interface more than 30 years ago. But if I type Command-I in a Blipfoto comment, Blip opens my Mail app and tries to send a message about the blip! I have written to Blip Support about this, and they said, "Not us. Probably your browser." Nate said, "The website you're in—in this case, Blipfoto—has complete control. The browser and the OS have nothing to do with it." Nate has been a Genius for several years, and I agree with him.

And that is how I've been spending my "NaNoWriMo vacation."

I did, afterward, have a delightful conversation with Will, a young father who works in Apple Store sales, is a former professional photographer, and keeps a journal. He showed me pictures of his kids taken with the new iPhone 7 dual camera, and they were fabulous. I told him I was unhappy with Apple's latest laptops, and Will suggested ditching them for an iPad and a keyboard, using Apple's Pages app or an iPad version of Microsoft Word. Not sure I can make this work for me, but I'm intrigued and plan to consult him further. 

So I left with a smile on my face. And it wasn't even raining.