Agile Failure Patterns in Organizations - <AUTHOR> https://age-of-product.com/agile-failure-patterns-in-organizations/ <comment><USER2> I see a lot of people using "agile" and Scrum™ interchangeably. Am I just a deluded fool, or is the agile manifesto completely ignored in practice? People talk about "agile methodology" and I wonder "doesn't the manifesto explicitly reject all 'methodologies'?". I thought that was the point. The manifesto is pretty short already but more or less I understand it as " do what makes sense to you". It's open to interpretation, but that's the whole reason for its existence. If companies think there's a magic book or a system to rigidly define "what makes sense" for all teams on all projects, and that such a system can/should be purchased if only the idiots working for them would just follow the rules, they're doomed anyway.

<comment><USER3> I agree 100%. I work in a big corporate environment. The problem with Agile is, it doesn't seem to work in a big corporate environment that loves the followings:

1\. Ability to plug and play bodies (PM, Dev, BA, offshore/outsource)

2\. Having those bodies held accountable individually

3\. Predictable process over progress or quality.

4\. Layers of management.

<comment><USER4> With the minor correction that #1 also applies to divisions (east coast office vs west coast office) and cross shift (3rd shift ops has the same written procedures and instincts or whatever as 2nd or 1st shift ops).

Programming is a young profession. On the other hand, design and engineering and automation are old, and the giants got that way by following pcurve's list, more or less, not by inventing or implementing Agile. Therefore the higher people go in management and therefore the more abstracted they get get from the front line, the more likely they are to completely uninterested in Agile, as that's just not how big companies are run, even if it works for a ten person startup. So there's going to be a push from the top to call it whatever you want but when you interface with the exec suite you'll talk in terms of micromanaged waterfall because that's how we build jet engines here, or mining machines, or run a worldwide communications system, or whatever.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Culture of Failure"

Good luck selling that to upper management.

On the contrary, quick iterations are about reducing the risk of building the wrong thing. Of course in the normal "blaming" corporate culture this won't work, because departments are always competing over budget and deliverables that are not "perfect" will be used as ammunition against the department where the product came from.

<comment><USER6> I usually prefer to call it "culture of learning to get back up again after falling."

<comment><USER5> Just "Culture of Learning" sounds great.

<comment><USER6> Already used outside of the development world, so I suppose it would be par for the course on confusion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Agile processes are either bent or ignored whenever it seems appropriate. > There is a lack of process discipline.

This one I don't understand. Isn't it sort of the antithesis of the first core principle of the Agile manifesto? Shouldn't it be a _good_ thing that the processes are bent or ignored when appropriate.

<comment><USER8> Whenever I meet people hiring for tech in Toronto They say things like: 'We practice XP, We apply agile to agile!", I hear "We have no idea what we're doing, and no idea how we're going about it but we will change it whether it's working or not and expect you to jump through a lot of hoops in addition to getting your work done"

I've seen offices with Gold stars for employees and these huge whiteboards filled with different milestones and benchmarks for projects. It _looks_ great, but the difference is the work isn't getting finished. I feel like agile can create a smoke screen (if you're not careful) where you're too busy seeing how successfully you're on track with agile and miss the opportunities or failures that are happening in the real world to your product, instead of inside your process. You can be in great shape as far as agile goes, and still be losing customers because your work comes months too late.

To me, process should never be more important than product. I come from a graphic design background where process is very important to ensuring consistent results, but you can never fetishize the design process over the results it produces or else you end up with mediocre, commoditized design that is indistinguishable from the worst stuff coming out.

You couldn't pay me enough to deal with agile in the workplace, I feel like you'd have to toss an extra 50k on the top nd I doubt anybody would pay me an extra 50k just to deal with it, so I'll continue working with non-agile folks who manage to get stuff done, like professionals! Opportunity doesn't wait for standups, timeboxing (telling people when they are allowed to talk or not), and micromanagement.

<comment><USER9> I feel like you're rejecting a strawman, rather than basing it on an honest "suspension of disbelief" experience at a well-regarded agile shop.

I joined Pivotal Labs a skeptic. Now I'm a proselyte.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> More of the "No True Scotsman" apologia for why Agile fails so often. I especially liked this gem:

>Team members reject Agile methodologies openly, as they do not want to be pushed out of their comfort zones.

I can't say I'd feel bad if a failed, Agile approach was not in my comfort zone.

<comment><USER11> I absolutely disagree.

There is no "True Scotsman" argument against Agile, IMO because there is no such thing as "true Agile". The best description I've heard of Agile is that it is the bare minimum amount of project management you can do on a project and still be successful. Beyond that, it's all about what works for each team. The entire f-ing point of Agile is that it's a generic framework you can adapt to many different business contexts.

But there are still common reasons Agile methodologies fail. I don't know how many of these are really failures of "Agile" or just common mistakes that new teams in general make. But it doesn't really matter, because the two situations are often inextricable from each other.

<comment><USER10> >There is no "True Scotsman" argument against Agile, IMO because there is no such thing as "true Agile".

If Agile is so nebulous as a concept that it can't be defined (only vaguely described, at best), then perhaps it cannot fail. But it also cannot succeed, as it apparently doesn't exist.

There may be teams for whom these management methodologies work, and good for them. I am genuinely curious about how much the success or failure of these methods have been studied.

<comment><USER11> Agile can be defined, but at its core, Agile is a set of best practices that by definition can be ignored. It's a collection of optional components that can produce a functional process when cobbled together in the right way. But figuring out what works for a team is often a lot of trial and error, so a skilled "Agile practitioner" can help you look at what has worked for you, what hasn't, and suggest things to try.

And you're right; when defined this way, Agile cannot fail. Agile isn't a magic bullet for your development team - at its core, Agile is a method by which dev teams can more or less self-organize around a set of generally agreed-upon processes. But it's up to each Agile team to develop those processes themselves.

I have yet to see an Agile team fail because their Agile process failed. I have seen Agile teams fail because the team was too inexperienced to provide their own direction. I have seen Agile teams fail because the dev lead wanted to play dictator. I've seen Agile teams fail because their business counterparts kept changing the requirements and demanding impossible things of the dev team.

I've never seen an Agile team fail because they couldn't figure out how to assign user stories or because they had no concept of release management. Sure, those things might be a disaster, but usually (after enough times going through some painful manual process) some developer steps up and says "Hey, I think I know a better way we can do this..." And those problems almost never endanger releases because Agile teams are by their very nature empowered to solve problems. Sure, the solution may have been inefficient and non- repeatable, but it worked.

<comment><USER12> >Agile can be defined

I tend to find that if you line up 4 developers and ask them what agile is you'll get a minimum of 5 definitions.

<comment><USER11> Exactly my point, and why there is no such thing as "true Agile" or a true Scotsman argument to be made.

And yes, I agree that the term Agile is largely meaningless at this point. Partly because nobody knows what it means, and partly because it's so ubiquitous there's no point calling it out on its own anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > Team members reject Agile methodologies openly, as they do not want to be > pushed out of their comfort zones

Or maybe they have identified Agile for what it is: a snake oil methodology that's completely unproven, which sometimes works, sometimes doesn't and, regardless of the outcome is never blamed if the project fails.

Bit like a religion.

<comment><USER14> >they have identified Agile for what it is: a snake oil methodology that's completely unproven

Is this a common line of thought? I recently started working for a company that follows Agile and I thought it was generally accepted as the "next step" so to speak in software development. I didn't know that there was any resentment for it. Care to elaborate? Do others feel this way as well?

<comment><USER15> It's certainly preferable to team of analysts spending 6 months writing specs, then engineers spending 12 months writing code, then 2 years spent testing and fixing things only to find out that while that's all been happening the internets been invented and the original product has no purpose.

<comment> saiya-jin i've seen exactly 0 of this type of projects you describe in corporate multinational environemnt (or any other for that matter). in any non-agile corp i've been, projects are usually a mix, where analysis doesn't finish when dev starts, testing is ongoing with dev, just shifted a bit. and when these projects go fubar, it's usually caused my forces far away from delivery team. rarely, it's really fault of team not delivering, but agian, situation is so complex and uncontrollable, that putting everything and everybody (including all stakeholders) into agile wouldn't probably make a big difference in go/nogo call.

agile approach brings quite a few aspects that developers like and they just feel right (or at least better), but frankly, it's overhyped. just another tool/approach to certain set of situations, in certain conditions

<comment><USER9> > _i 've seen exactly 0 of this type of projects you describe in corporate > multinational environemnt_

I work in Pivotal Labs.

I happen to be working on such a project with one of the world's largest financial firms. Across the hall from me is another team working with that company. Behind me are three teams working for a retail giant, in front two teams working for a large insurer.

In the same office I've seen everything from iphone scroller games, to startup apps, to microservice migrations, to entire product categories, being created this way.

Collectively, Pivotal Labs has helped develop thousands of products for hundreds of clients with a collective business value in the billions.

I invite you to visit any of our offices to see it for yourself. Email me: firstname.lastname@example.com and I'll set it up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Some common pathological beliefs I've seen, some logical fallacies, some worse:

The rationalization drive implies failure needs an excuse. Sometimes Agile is the least strongly defended possible victim. Therefore Agile is bad.

Agile is complicated. The simplest components to explain are also the most trivial. Something that's only trivial is invariably foolish. Therefore Agile is bad.

"Most people" are experimenting with Agile. Half of managers / devs are below median by definition. Its a very realistic prediction that half the time, Agile will result in below median performance. Therefore Agile is bad.

Every other silver bullet for the past 50+ years has been a scam. Agile is a silver bullet. No one can explain why this silver bullet is any more likely to be real than the last couple dozen fads. Therefore Agile is bad.

Agile only seems to scale to a narrow range of team size. Things that don't scale up, or down, are stereotypically seen as bad by programmers, no matter if the stereotype is applicable or not to the situation under discussion (that's why its called a stereotype or bias). Therefore Agile is bad.

Sometimes Agile is implemented as a sub-scheme where the overarching style remains micromanagement or seagull management or simple chaos. If the cake is a lie, a thin layer of Agile flavored frosting isn't going to make the overall dish taste good. Coverups are inherently bad. Therefore Agile is bad.

Agile is impossible to define and really popular. Grok that. At least some of the bottom half of the median will simply use the word as a checkbox without ever implementing it. Essentially managers who "have no idea whats going on" will sometimes describe themselves as Agile as false advertising. Therefore Agile is bad.

Related to most of the above, the odds of finding a shop actually successfully implementing true Agile are low. Therefore statistically if an employer says they're agile that's a sign for applicants to avoid them. And that means the best people will successfully avoid agile, with all kinds of secondary effects. Therefore Agile is bad.

</comment><comment> UK-AL I think trying to do a big bang deployment of scrum in a slow organisation bureaucratic organisation is probably a bad idea.

Probably best idea is something using kanban. Map the existing process using kanban. Find bottle necks, and fix the process. Start changing bits to it. Start using TDD, maybe user stories, maybe add "sprint" planning meetings.

You might not be implementing "true agile", but its better than complete disaster trying to enforce everything suddenly.

Also this comment he stated in the comments makes me uncomfortable.

"being uncomfortable committing to an outcome that's time-boxed"

" sticking to a 5-to-9 mentality "

You shouldn't really being "commiting" to a time box. Its a guess, not a commitment. You use velocity to get better at the guess. If you miss, oh well lets get better at it next time by adjusting the story points in a sprint.

He makes sound like he expecting people to work overtime to meet a commitment. This is not recommended in scrum. You should have a normal work time mentality and work requirements should fit into normal hours. If you miss the "guess", you should adjust the next sprint to not include as much. If you work overtime to meet the commitment, you re-enforce the idea that it is ok to commit a overloaded amount of work to a sprint. Bad. Bad. Bad. That can be abused.

</comment><comment><USER16> > Team members reject Agile methodologies openly, as they do not want to be > pushed out of their comfort zones.

I love how this equates critical thinking and complacency.

See? I can do it too.

</comment><comment><USER17> Why would one adopt a methodology with so many pitfalls?

<comment><USER18> Other methodologies have their pitfalls as well, but agile is the methodology that many are adopting from the get-go or changing to. As such, it's head is on the chopping block. Developers are scrutinizing it to evaluate the trade- offs. You'll see people celebrating agile as if its the messiah to save all projects, and you'll see others decrying it as smoke and mirrors.

I think it's important that people are openly (not overly) critical of trends. It can help people make more informed decisions. The problem then lies with others trying to wade through vocal idiots masquerading as experts and legitimate information hidden in the cruft.

<comment><USER17> Yupp, it's indeed the thing of the day. Reading that list I just wondered if using no apparent methodology would be any worse. I have a hard time rationalizing the almost theological adherence to software development methodologies in general.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Does anyone else find this hard to read? Small grey type on a white background makes it look more like terms and conditions than an article.

<comment><USER20> Dude, at least pretend to comment on the content and as a side note, comment on the form. How would you feel if someone commented that way on a matter you wrote about concerning an issue you consider important?

<comment><USER19> I'd appreciate the feedback and I'd try and make it more comfortable to read.

<comment><USER21> Good, but giving feedback in an unrelated forum that the author probably doesn't read is not useful. The page has a "Leave A Comment" box. Give feedback there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Wait, why would people think that Agile is a substitute for hiring senior people?</comment>


Wikipedia Servers: How Does It All Work? - <AUTHOR> http://wikitech.wikimedia.org/view/Server_roles

<comment> brown9-2 Anyone have a mirror? The site does not respond for me.

<comment><USER2> [http://220.127.116.11/search?q=cache:6df44nPiWlYJ:https://ro...](http://184.108.40.206/search?q=cache:6df44nPiWlYJ:https://rocket.ryerson.ca/http/wikitech.wikimedia.org/view/Server_roles+http://wikitech.wikimedia.org/view/Server_roles&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&client=firefox-a)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is a textbook for how to set up a high-traffic web site. It's remarkable because of the openness. I was surprised at how many Squid machines they're running, but really, that makes sense.

<comment><USER3> Apparently they didn't apply that recipe to this link.

<comment><USER4> Do you use the same level of infrastructure for your documentation server as you do for your 10's of millions of visitors / day production server?

<comment><USER5> Same level? Just use the same infrastructure (put the same caching Squid servers in front).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What does Wikipedia need $100'000s for?</comment>


Raygun uses .NET Core to increase performance 2000% over Node.js - <AUTHOR> https://customers.microsoft.com/en-US/story/raygun <comment><AUTHOR> Apologies for the Microsoft source on this, but it was all I could find. Interestingly, in December, Raygun posted about comparing performance of different nodejs frameworks[1]. In that, though they conclude it's not the fastest, they say:

> We still utilize express in our ingestion layer though in the future we may > switch to an different language entirely.

So I'm guessing this is where they went. It would be great to see what other considerations they had switching away from nodejs, and what else was considered.

[1]: [https://medium.com/@raygunio/node-js-performance- showdown-v7...](https://medium.com/@raygunio/node-js-performance- showdown-v7-2-1-a-framework-comparison-4ecc359f743e)</comment>


Platform building growth strategies and economics - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@smitty/what-i-learned-from-100-s-of-hours-studying-platform-businesses-platform-growth-tactics-part-2-aa140a5dd3d4#.trdt5wod4 <comment><AUTHOR> Author here, I wrote this to consolidate a bunch of research I was doing related to strategy while at Segment. If you have any feedback on format, concepts, etc, please share. Thanks!</comment>


RelaxedReader: A Firefox Addon to Fight Reading Anxiety - <AUTHOR> https://citizen428.net/blog/relaxed-reader-a-firefox-addon-to-fight-reading-anxiety/ <comment><USER2> This is a really interesting project considering Pocket is built in and developed by Mozilla. I wish you the best of luck.

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting use case to develop something for. Really like the idea, I'll be trying it out for sure!

</comment><comment><USER4> What does Reading Anxiety mean in this context ?

<comment><USER5> I think they mean having too much in your "to read" list that it becomes overwhelming. I didn't realise that was a thing.

"A Firefox extension to fight reading anxiety by limiting the maximum number of stored articles and automatically expiring them after 30 days."</comment></comment>


How The Google Book Settlement Will Change The Future of Reading - <AUTHOR> http://io9.com/5501426/5-ways-the-google-book-settlement-will-change-the-future-of-reading

<comment><USER2> I wrote a little tongue-in-cheek blog about what I think google is trying to do with books a while ago (it's here: <http://newslily.com/blogs/75> if you care to read the whole thing).

Basically, I think that google is run by a couple of hugely wealthy nerds who really do just want to do good things. Google isn't trying to steal copyright away from anyone, they're trying to prevent a bunch of human art and knowledge from disappearing in the basement of some demolished library somewhere.

One of the major things that people who are against what google is doing here don't seem to understand is that they don't gain exclusive rights to the book, they gain _distribution rights_ to _their own_ digital copies (which they will still have to license from the copyright holders if they want to sell). This isn't different than if I were to go home right now and start scanning my book collection, then go to their respective publishers and try to work a deal with them to distribute the digital copy.

I will admit that I might be horribly wrong about this, but this is how I understand it works...

<comment><USER3> My understanding is that if anyone else wants to embark on a similar endeavor they will have to make their own settlement with the copyright holders. Which mean google gets a special legal advantage that it shouldn't.

<comment><USER2> _My understanding is that if anyone else wants to embark on a similar endeavor they will have to make their own settlement with the copyright holders. Which mean google gets a special legal advantage that it shouldn't._

What? Wouldn't that just mean that if somebody wanted to do the same thing that they would have to...do the same thing?

<comment><USER3> Sorry, it is unlikely that anyone else will be able to get the same settlement that google received. In essence they have a special right to "orphaned" works that no one else will have.

Also, I should not I'm all for google books. I think that copyright/patents no longer need to exist in the modern world, but if they are going to stay around they need to apply to everyone equally.

<comment><USER4> How is it a special right, the settlement basically grants them a special license. The reason they had to go to court is because no one would give them a license for free publication so they played the 'orphan' card and got the other party to the table for a settlement.

Please don't argue the naive copyright shouldn't exist because my-head-is- stuck-so-far-in-the-sand-I-hit-rock-and-forgot-common-sense angle. With hollywood virtually cloning every successful movie that has ever existed, do we really want to give them a free pass to actually clone every successful movie that has ever existed? As for every successful book/movie/TV franchise to ever exist, well they'd be gone out the window with masses of meaningless fan-wank shot out by every publisher known to man trying to make a dollar. Copyright has an important clause in it of preventing derivative works by unauthorised people, this means that Harry Potter remains being written by Rowling and actually ends in a way fans are likely to actually enjoy rather than see a Harry Potter: Failed To Graduate Again - New Mystery Edition!

By removing copyright you negatively effect the common person more than you positively affect them. For all I know you could be a fantastic photographer, I myself have worked as a reviewer and have sold my work, you as a photographer have all the rights to sell your photographs no matter where you've posted them. Do you really want to give any company permission to take your photographs from your Flickr account and use them in a national campaign without your permission? Or would you prefer to get the $20,000 check that those license purchases usually come with?

The RIAA and MPAA are the problem, not copyright. The better way to resolve this problem is to reform copyright to limit actions taken on the copyright holders behalf without the copyright holders permission. Legally speaking the copyright holder has to be the person to file the claim, however due to the licensing agreements musicians sign with their label they're actually giving license authority to the MPAA too, which they actually don't agree too.

<comment><USER3> The removal of copyright does not allow plagiarism or misattribution of work. So there could be a lot books set in the harry potter world, but fans would only buy those by the author that they like. I realize that the author has a much better system today, but in reality it should no longer exist. For instance, how long should we be banned from writing books in the Harry Potter universe? 10 yeas, 20 years, forever?

As for your photography example, someone taking your photograph and using it wouldn't be able to say that they took it. That would be fraud. If they listed the credits for the picture you would be credited. Now of course it would be great if 20000$ were deposited in your checking account, and I'd love it if the law allowed me to charge people walking on the street in front of my house for the pleasure my house gives them, but I can't.

So yes copyright is a problem it restricts what I can do with ideas, not with physical property. My use of ideas and data that you've transferred to me does not limit you in any way you can still do everything that you could before. The entire concept of intellectual property is fundamentally flawed, and it was able to exist when the means of copying material were expensive, now that it is cheap the flaws are beginning to show and the advantages content creators have been given is going to go away. Imagine if you had to ask permission and pay licensee fees anytime you photographed something that was designed by a human. What to take a picture of that tree, well I planted it pay me 20000$, want to take a picture of a person drinking a glass of water pay me 20000$ for glass and 20000$ for the water that comes out of the tap.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Preservation and proliferation of culture are more important than strict copyright adherance. I am in favor of Google's agressive approach.

But if they're ad-wording books that seems clearly unethical.

</comment><comment><USER6> _If we go on doing it [Google's] way, we end up with a wholly-owned list of digitized books, many stolen from their owners, totally controlled, managed, opened and closed to public use, by a profit-making corporation interested in furthering its monopolistic control of information. - Ursula Le Guin_

As opposed to, what exactly, how the publishers of the United States of Fictionalamerica do? Or did Le Guin really thought her publisher was a honest non-profit interested on sharing and expanding the public domain?

<comment><USER7> Yes, that quote seemed odd, so I looked deeper at Le Guin's position.

* Most authors weren't represented in the Google Book Settlement, though they will be severely affected by it.

* The settlement is extremely complicated, and it's difficult to put across all her objections in (say) the span of an interview.

* She does want a global digital library, but not under the control of a corporation like Google. Google of course acts in its own interest (and those of its shareholders), and is not even minimally under popular control.

I agree with these points. However, I wish she'd discuss (more than just in passing during an interview) a fair alternative to Google -- one which is free-as-in-freedom and compensates authors/staff. (Or did I miss it?) Because digitalization is very important, and authors' interests do conflict with those of consumers, under our economic system.

[http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2010/02/conversation- ur...](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2010/02/conversation-ursula-le- guin.html)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Storing financial data securely in web apps? - <AUTHOR>

How to store very sensitive data like credit card transactions sercurly in a simple web application?
Intuitively I'd store it on the users computer (IndexedDB, File Api?) because many users won't store their data on any web service.
Is there a better way I'm missing? <comment><USER2> I'm not sure about all security-related aspects of it, but concerning a separation between application logic and data, unhosted[1] comes to mind.

[1] <http://www.unhosted.org>

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks, that looks interesting!</comment></comment>


How the Apple Store Lost Its Luster - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-07/apple-store-locations-reviews-show-customer-service-in-decline <comment><USER2> I went in a few months to get a hardware thing fixed with an appointment set and nobody helped me. I waited for like 10 minutes past by appointment time and everyone was booked up. I tried pestering people but everyone was helping someone else and asked me to wait for another associate.

Eventually I gave up and left the store. I'm sure their analytics never even noticed me, their data says I just never showed up for the appointment. It's a bad outcome, I sold the old half broken macbook and switched to a thinkpad.

I still think their phones are better than android, but mainly that's just because I don't want anything that Google touches anywhere near me.

<comment><USER3> > I sold the old half broken macbook and switched to a thinkpad

Di you switch to thinkpad just because of this service support issue? Because I don't think thinkpad is better in service dept

<comment><USER4> Thiknpads are easily serviceable and Lenovo often just sends you a replacement component if one on your laptop fails and you know how to replace it on your own.

Apple instead is trying very hard to make everything not easily replaceable, even the failing keyboard is hard to remove for a common user

<comment><USER5> +1, I've benefited from Lenovo sending out parts before. If you want to swap the part, they will happily mail you the part and send a link to their step by step guide on how to swap said part.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The absolute worst thing about going to the Apple store is figuring out how to flag someone down if they're busy. For that reason alone, I've stopped recommending Apple products to my older relatives. Once upon a time, the dominant factor was that the walled garden allowed them to feel less intimidated by their technology, which left them feeling like their devices were vastly more capable, even when they technically had fewer features. Now, the dominant factor is that, when they need help, they need the ability to talk to a human, and Apple is no longer supplying easy access to humans, they've put all the certified resellers who _did_ offer that service out of business, and I personally do not scale. Best Buy and Microcenter, on the other hand, still have a place right at the front of the store, next to the entrance, where you can go get help from a human without having to make an appointment on a cleanly-designed-to-the-point-of-being-confusing-for-many- people website first.

I'm sure Apple believes they've streamlined things immensely by getting rid of the whole "here's a place you can wait in line to do X" thing, but, like you said, at least some of the benefit they're seeing is probably illusory, because it leaves them with no great way to measure how long people have to wait to talk to someone in the first place, or how many people are giving up without ever successfully talking to someone. What they really need to do is put a triage desk right by the entrance of every Apple store.

<comment><USER7> >> figuring out how to flag someone down if they're busy. For that reason alone, I've stopped recommending Apple products to my older relatives.

Be cute. Wear cool clothes. Don't be old. Look like an "influencer" with a million followers. The more you look like the people in the apple commercials the faster they will get to you. Above all things, apple stores are image- conscious. They are welcoming to people who fit the image they wish to portray and shun those who do not.

Or, if you really want fast service, do the opposite. I wore my military uniform to an apple store once (picking up a xmas present on my way home from work). Despite the crowds I had a manager helping me within seconds. She was very eager to get me helped and back out the door. Camo does clash with iPhone white.

<comment><USER8> Funny that they should ignore the old fogies without influence, as they are the ones that can most afford the Apple junk.

I'm pushing 50, and I don't need a fucking loan to buy an iPhone.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, no interest payments from you. Less profitable.

<comment><USER10> When you lease to own to your phone through Apple with CitizenOne, there's no interest

<comment><USER9> For 24 months, which means that there is a non-zero risk of interest. It also appears to require insurance, precludes you from other offers, etc.

I suspect that these finance deals are still more expensive for the consumer than paying in cash. After all, you're receiving convince.

[0][https://www.apple.com/legal/sales- support/iphoneupgrade_us/](https://www.apple.com/legal/sales- support/iphoneupgrade_us/)

<comment><USER10> It's a lease to own, so after the 24 months, it's yours and you don't pay anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> My biggest complaint about the Apple Store is the long wait times when your computer breaks. You often have to wait for a few days to even get an appointment.

But the award for the most asinine thing about the Apple Store is their insistence on not having a proper area to pay for things. So people just wander around wanting to buy something and not knowing where to pay for it. And they end up wasting a lot more time that way.

<comment><USER12> >The award for the most asinine thing about the Apple Store is their insistence on not having a proper area to pay for things.

For small ticket items, you can scan, pay and leave without needing to interact with the staff.

>Thanks to the Apple Store app, you can use your iPhone to scan the barcode of an accessory off the shelf and use Apple Pay to pay for it. From there, you can just walk out of the store with your new Apple accessory in hand.

[https://www.howtogeek.com/338754/how-to-buy-stuff-at-the- app...](https://www.howtogeek.com/338754/how-to-buy-stuff-at-the-apple-store- without-a-cashier/)

<comment><USER13> Well, yeah, thank you+) very much, I guess.

So same as with self scanning tills at supermarkets I'm now expected to do the work for one of the most profitable companies in the world, since they can't be bothered to have a proper checkout or hire enough people.

+) Not you, personally, obviously.

edit: reformat

<comment><USER14> Huh? Self checkouts are great! Rather than having 1 or 2 tills you can have many times that manned by the same number of people. If you don't have any alcohol you can use it without interacting with anyone at all and its much faster.

That coupled with contactless payments make it super quick to buy just a few items.

A "proper" checkout is still king for large shops but for people I know (late 20s), that is becoming less common for more frequent, smaller shopping trips.

Edit: I should say this is for someone based in London.

<comment><USER15> >If you don't have any alcohol you can use it without interacting with anyone at all and its much faster.

I agree that you can do it without interacting with anyone at all. But I question whether it's faster.

For a class assignment on usability a while back, I observed self-checkout users and manned ("proper") checkout at a local grocery store and found that the absolute fastest of the self-checkout users were only just as fast (per item) as the average manned checkout user (among 24 users).

 _A few factors increase the speed of manned transactions. First, cashiers are familiar with common produce numbers, avoiding the need to search for stickers or slowly look up the number of a particular item. Second, a cashier can begin bagging items as the user pays by credit card or pulls out cash, so some of the work is done in parallel. Third, sometimes manned checkouts have a person dedicated to bagging, which reduces the time even further (though all times recorded for this project are single cashiers without baggers)._

Self-checkouts definitely feel nicer for me (except when the anti-theft "place item in bagging area" nagging starts). But now, when I'm in a hurry, I'll make a beeline for a register with a cashier instead of the self-checkout.

<comment><USER16> To me, the main advantage is that (at my local store) they implement a "wait for the next available machine" protocol rather than "pick a cashier to queue up behind."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've also noticed the "it's impossible to actually _buy_ anything" problem with Apple Stores, especially in stores that get any appreciable amount of foot traffic. (Where I live there is at least one Apple Store in a mall that hardly anyone visits, and that one is just fine for service.)

However—and I'm not saying this as a defense, just as an interesting fact—at one point when I was waiting around trying to get the attention of someone to buy a stupid dongle, a staff member helpfully pointed out to me that I could just buy the thing myself with the Apple Store app on my phone (i.e. point my phone at the barcode on it, pay with card), and then walk out out of the store with the item, having never interacted with a single store worker (except perhaps implicitly with a plainclothes security guard who observed me doing this self-checkout flow and so didn't tackle me on the way out. I don't think your purchase is somehow remotely deactivating a magnetic anti-theft tag in the product or anything, so they've got to be doing loss-prevention for this flow the old-fashioned way.)

And while you can't complete the entire purchase yourself for big-ticket items (the kind they keep back in the warehouse section and would have to retrieve for you), you can still do the "paying" part in advance of showing up at the store, through the app—or _while_ you're in the store, through the app—which turns the process of "finding an employee who has time to both guide you through SKU selection _and_ ring you up" into "getting the front-door attendant to notify anyone with a spare moment that one of the devices already in the 'waiting for pickup' pile in the back can be grabbed and brought out."

Honestly, this seems like it has somehow secretly become the _primary_ flow that Apple Stores _want_ to do [non-business-customer] purchases through, and yet they don't mention it anywhere. They should have big signs in the stores telling you to buy things using your phone (and/or by using the store website on any of the demo computers)!

<comment><USER18> store pickup is very convenient, although Best Buy and Home Depot have an even better service as you don't have to install an app or use Apple Pay

<comment><USER19> Confused… [https://store.apple.com](https://store.apple.com) lets you buy anything, pay any way you want, and pick it up at a store, no?

<comment><USER17> Right; the only unique thing about using the Apple Store app is that it lets you scan UPC codes for small-purchase items when you're already in the store, allowing you to just pick something up and walk out with it. For large- purchase items, it's the same whether you use the app or the website. (Although I _think_ that when you show up to a store where you have an item waiting for you, and you have the app running, it does some kind of automatic prompting or notification to staff or something.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's the same problem that they have with most of their products. All design considerations are controlled by people driven exclusively by thin, light, minimal. It's getting tired and cliche.

I don't live in a place big enough for an Apple forest grove or whatever. It's an undersized store in a mall that was remodeled two years ago. The people who designed it never were in such a store before. It's crowded, too loud, and stripped of basic functions. The old version of the Apple store felt busy and energized, the new ones are disorienting.

The old Apple store in the same retail space was much more functional. It had a nice little kids corner with a lower table and fancy toadstool chairs. It was a great way for kids to explore iMacs and iPads. Now purged as a lower table isn't symmetrical enough. The training area is just a table in the middle, and it's just not as pleasant -- people can't hear and leave.

Apple has a great thing going with people there though -- it's a real asset. The staff are incredibly friendly, patient and helpful.

<comment><USER21> The sound thing is a real issue. The Apple store by my parents moved into a larger and renovated space recently with double the height ceilings. It got way louder, to the point where you can barely hear what the reps say to you. I'd have a migraine every day if I had to work a whole shift in there.

It's the same problem in restaurants and bars that have this style of concrete floors, hard walls, and exposed duct work ceilings: there is nothing to absorb the sound. When people stripped drapes from windows, carpet from floors, and coverings from ceilings, no one stopped to think why these sound absorbing materials were used in the first place. You can fix this by spraying sound insulating foam all over your beautiful exposed ceiling that no one looks at because it's dusty and painted black and 20 feet in the air, but that's clearly a cost that's already been calculated and cut.

As a result, you can't hear anyone at breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, the bar, the gym, or even the Apple store.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Yes! The Genius Bar experience has been terrible (especially as a somewhat socially anxious person) the past few times I've been there. A lot of sitting while constantly busy employees buzzed around, unsure if I was waiting in the right place, hoping someone would come by and ask what I there for.

It's like they're emulating the real bar experience, with a bunch of overworked and inattentive bartenders. Just give me a dedicated line to pick my stuff up.

<comment><USER23> Honestly I have felt many times that the Apple Store could use a vending machine for iPhones. Anything that somebody might want to just grab and go no matter how expensive.

<comment><USER24> 1000% agree. I don't always want someone to walk me through setting up my iPhone. I've used them since the very first one, I don't need any help. Take my money already and let me get out. Even just picking up a set of airpods for my wife took far longer than it should have. A vending machine would be all kinds of awesome, maybe like the ones Best Buy has at the airport (which sells some Apple products like airpods, coincidentally...)

<comment><USER23> I had the opposite experience once at the Ala Moana store. Needing the 1/4 in. headphone adapter (separate rant) I waited patiently, got someone's attention, and made my purchase. They kindly informed me that next time I should self- service with the Apple app. Meaning I should have walked in, pulled item from shelf, checked myself out, and walked out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> For me the apple store has basically come to mean:

\- Very long lines/overcrowded store

\- It's all full of Apple Watches and stuff like that and trivial luxury accessories

\- Not enough Macs anymore

\- None of the really cool displays they used to have like a Mac Pro set up for music studio or video work complete with a camera or midi controller or other instrument plugged in.

\- For some reason they always smell like BO. Either it's the employees or customers they attract, there is something odd about the design of the store that screws with HVAC, or they're not cleaning well. Very weird thing.

So yah, not much luster. Even when they introduce new products these days I don't really want to go into the store and try them cause the experience is bad enough it outweighs the interest to check out the new product.

It is weird cause they are such copycats but I think the MS stores are better run now.

<comment><USER26> I agree with your observations about the Apple store, but I wouldn't say the MS stores are run better.

At the MS store you can get fast service, but thats mostly because it's empty. The floor staff descends upon you like hungry vultures when you enter, and you can't get rid of them. Thats what I've experienced at the Austin one anyway.

<comment><USER25> Yah I can agree with that completely.

Mostly my observation is the way they run events and stuff seems very cool.

E.x. letting the kids come in and play Fortnite or do coding classes. Seems to always be free.

Then they've got VR demos or XBoxes setup with car cockpits..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> "Lost Its Luster" suggests we can point to a decline from peak. The basis for the article? According to the subhead, "In interviews, current and former employees..." Oh boy.

The article lays out the high: "As recently as 2017, the retail arm was generating an estimated $5,500 in sales per square foot, easily outpacing rivals. But that's getting harder to pull off." And the low? Not specified. That number could be higher or lower in 2019, we are not told.

It turns out that a company employing hundreds of thousands of people has some disgruntled ex-employees who prefer the way things used to be. The writer suggests that this is the fault of the woman who ran the retail division until recently, not, say, monumental growth or a human propensity for empty nostalgia.

I don't see any factual basis for the headlines anywhere in the article. Am I missing it?

<comment><USER28> The By Line is from one of their main Apple analysts paired with a guy that covers retail exclusively. Likely the story they're trying to play out is this general downward trend in retail, but there's very little steak here. It reads like a hit piece for someone with interest in the stock trading lower, rather than the meaningful reporting of legitimate news here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm disappointed with the lack of autonomy that the staff has in the Apple Store. In any interaction with the genius staff, they go off the official playbook to the point where it doesn't even make sense sometimes.

I have a macbook pro where I've replaced the disk drive with an SSD and boot off of that. One day it stopped booting from that drive, so I brought it into the genius bar to see if the drive was dead or if a ribbon cable failed.

After talking about the problem for a while, they finally took it to the back and opened it up, and just as quickly returned it to me with a grave face. They saw that the optical drive had been removed and the RAM upgraded to 16gb, and because of their corporate policies, all they could do to a machine that's been upgraded is button it back up and return it to the user. Never mind that the problem with my macbook wasn't the drive or the cable, the drive had wiggled out of its mount and was just loose in the case.

You could shake the laptop and hear it slapping around, and the geniuses definitely would have noticed the loose drive as soon as they opened it like I did when I returned home, but their policy was such that they couldn't even tell me what they saw in there. Imagine if your local mechanic operated so rigidly. Looking back at it, it was like a scene out of 1984 and I wouldn't have been surprised if one of the geniuses slipped me a scrap of paper with the words on it that they clearly weren't permitted to utter with an apple lanyard around their neck ("reattach ssd to optibay").

<comment><USER29> Amazing. Somebody should write a "1984" centered around the sinister stew of the marriage of corporate/government bureaucratic rot and authoritarianism we've wound up in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> _> [Angela Ahrendts'] overhaul of the Genius Bar has been especially controversial. Customers looking for technical advice or repairs must now check in with an employee, who types their request into an iPad. Then when a Genius is free, he or she must find the customer wherever they happen to be in the store. Ahrendts was determined to get rid of lineups, but now the stores are often crowded with people waiting for their iPhones to be fixed or batteries swapped out. [...] Some employees speculate she'll [Deirdre O'Brien] bring back the original Genius Bar._

I don't see how the old _dedicated_ space for a Genius Bar would work better. The problem is that the old way tied tech support to a spatial _location_ in the store. The new way assigned tech support to a _person_ instead of a location. This allows _any and every table_ in the store to become a temporary "genius bar" for that customer session.

In theory, if you had a dedicated area for the Genius Bar, you'd hope it would be free of crowds and be very inviting. An example photo showing open seats ready for instant service for the next customer: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Apple_Ge...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Apple_Genius_Bar_Regentstreet_London.jpg)

But reality turns out differently. In the following photo, notice the long lines crowding the back of the store at the Genius Bar: [https://tr4.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/2006/10/03/fce299cc-c3bf-11...](https://tr4.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/2006/10/03/fce299cc-c3bf-11e2-bc00-02911874f8c8/apple_store_07.jpg)

If an Apple exec wants to bring back the dedicated area for the Genius Bar, how does one avoid the logistical nightmare of those lines? You still have to work within the same finite retail floor space.

I don't like the new Apple Stores but I do know I'd rather sit down at one of the retail tables instead of stand in line at the old store layout.

<comment><USER31> One way is to make the check-in person more than a dumb data enterer. My iPhone suddenly stopped getting any carrier signal one day. I took it to the Apple store that evening because I needed to go out of town the next day, and I had to have a working phone. I checked in at the front of the store and waited 2.5 hours for my turn with a Genius. The fix was to press the very specific "reset network settings button" (which isn't under Cellular settings, it's under General->Reset). I was relieved it was such a simple fix, but it was ridiculous to wait over 2 hours to press the right button. The check-in person should ask what you've tried and do the most basic triage to avoid this kind of problem congesting the store.

<comment><USER32> I can see how this division of work makes sense. Genius training is expensive, and it's important to quickly check in customers. That said, I like your idea of equipping these employees with a basic remedy or two. After inputting the issue, the iPad could display a prompt with common self-solve solutions. The trick is how the employee frames it. You don't want customers thinking it is _the_ solution, as no diagnostics have been performed, nor do you want them thinking less of Genius Bar if it does not work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I went to buy a brand new laptop at the Apple Store, and despite knowing exactly what I wanted I had to wait for at least 20 minutes - when I walked in, I was told to wait until an associate was free (whereas in most stores I could just grab a product off the shelf and go check out), then I was ping- ponged around at least 2 other people (both of whom I had to wait for - 'just hang around this area and we'll send someone over' \- they each spoke to me for less than a minute once they knew I just wanted to buy a thing.

What a hassle. The only reason I went brick and mortar at all was because of a promotion where you get a free headphone set, and I wanted to be sure to receive it.

<comment><USER34> What B&M store lets you freely grab a $2000+ laptop and bring it to checkout on your own?

<comment><USER35> In the UK, John Lewis, Curry's, PC world. At the least you can ask someone to get one from the stock room for you and you can have it and be on your way within 10 minutes. I bought my last laptop from John Lewis in about 5 mins of entering the store.

<comment><USER36> This comparison is almost not fair. I've recently moved back to the UK and experienced John Lewis for the first time. Now I almost try to avoid buying from Amazon if I can help it, I can't believe how good the shopping experience is there. Also, they price match most online retailers if I remember/understood correctly which is insane.

<comment><USER35> Yeah and they do a great extended warranty as standard, the others I mention will increase check out time to hassle you to buy their warranty. John Lewis has it as standard and their returns is very customer focused

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I live near an Apple store and frequent it every few months when I need to fix a phone or laptop, or buy a dongle, etc.

The store near me gets lots of foot traffic, but the experience is just fine. There are usually at least 2-3 employees who will come up and ask me how I'm doing and what they can help with. Given the size of the store, the number of employees is surprising actually. And it's as easy as ever to book appointments, in my experience anyway.

I think what's changed is that the novelty has worn off. When Apple Stores first became a thing, it was new and sexy. Now, they're everywhere and don't have that wow factor, because it's become a feature of our lives that you go there every so often if you want to try out, fix or buy an apple product in person. And with the novelty factor gone, people find things to complain about if their experience isn't _perfect_ , even though Apple's customer service is still light years ahead of most anyone else [0].

[0] I say this as an Android and Lenovo X1 user. I personally prefer non-mac products, but my wife has a Macbook Pro and an iPhone and I'm always jealous that when things break, she can get them fixed right away, while I worry that a fix will entail multiple unpleasant interactions with phone agents, followed by a multi-week repair process.

EDIT: I want to add two ideas here in the hope that someone here finds them helpful. When I make laptop purchases (for non-apple products), the first place I look is Costco. They offered the Carbon X1 laptop with pretty good specs (16gb RAM, i7 processor, 512GB SSD. Similar specs on the Dell XPS 13 that they sell) at a great price, with a 90 day, no questions asked return policy and an extra year of warranty included in the already great price. Even if you aren't a costco member, it's probably worth joining for this deal if you are looking to get a Dell or Lenovo laptop. And in my experience, Costco is very easy to deal with when problems arise.

A second idea is to buy using a Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card, which also add a year on to the manufacturer's warranty. Usually, they require you to get a quote from a repair shop and they will reimburse you. In some cases, they will just replace the product straight up. And they are _fairly_ easy to work with. This is the only card I use to make purchases that I know have a chance of breaking.

<comment><USER38> Lenovo's onsite service is inexpensive and, in my experience, excellent. I've used it a few times over the years and it's involved minimal interaction with helpful, focused staff and techs.

<comment><USER37> In my city, for onsite service, I have two options within 30 miles: one is an office depot, and the other is a computer repair store. Both seem to contract with Lenovo. I'm sure that there are some repair centers that provide excellent service and some less so.

Meanwhile, Apple has five stores within a 30 minute drive. And in my experience, every single Apple store I've been to gives me a more-or-less consistently good experience. Is it perfect? Far from it. But they can fix most issues I've had onsite, and the turnaround time is predictable when they ship out for repairs.

Meanwhile, with other companies, it's a crapshoot. I had a phone from LG that broke. I mailed it in and after 5 weeks and many follow up phone calls, I still didn't have it back. They claimed that they were out of the part that they needed to repair the phone and were waiting for it to come in. They initially told me that the repair would take 2 weeks. In my mind, a company with decent customer service would see that the part is out of stock and just give me a replacement phone if they can't turn around the repair in a reasonable time frame.

With Apple, you know what you are getting into. And if they say 1 week, they usually mean 1 week.

<comment><USER39> Onsite is your site. It is at times a confusing term, but if you get an onsite warrant you needn't go anywhere, you wait at your place of business or your home and the tech comes in and fixes it. Lenovo actually does pretty well at this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Every Apple Store with a Genius Bar has a receptionist (a guy holding an iPad with the Genius Bar appointment schedule on it, running interference at the entrance to the store), and usually _they_ try to get _your_ attention if you look like you're coming in for an appointment and/or a pickup rather than to browse; but I guess they can miss you if they're busy.

I think the Genius Bar "workflow" might depend on speaking to said receptionist (either directly, or having someone redirect you back to them.) Without them, nobody knows you've arrived, so you don't end up in the service queue.

<comment><USER40> It sounds like this situation can be remedied in multiple ways:

* Email a customer a reminder email with explicit instructions on who to talk to in-store

* Train the Genius Bar techs to point a customer to the receptionist when looking for an appt

* Put up a sign in-store that points customers to the receptionist

* Have the receptionist wear a differently-styled uniform than the techs (nametag, color, etc)

This does not sound like a difficult problem to solve. Then again, it could have been the perfect storm of events for OP. Maybe the receptionist had to step out and take an emergency phone call. You never know what could happen. At the very least, the techs and associates working the floor should at least be able to point the customer to the correct place/associate. A 'schedule appt' service queue should not be mixed with the 'walk-in' and 'browsing' service queue.

<comment><USER41> Or, have the Genius bar receptionist near the Genius Bar. Only in furniture stores am I expecting an employee to grab me as soon as I walk in the door.

<comment><USER40> Like I said, anything can happen. As far as I'm concerned, it is the customer's responsibility to show up for the appt. It is then the associate's responsibility to initiate the required services - whoever that associate may be.

On a personal note: As a customer, I take the concept of a schedule appt much more seriously than simply browsing.

With browsing: I am a _tentative_ customer of a product. I am new business. Whether you want new business is up to you. If I have a bad experience, I'll go somewhere else.

With a schedule appt: I am a _current_ customer. I have already bought into your product, and now I have an issue with it. If I have a bad experience, I am now under the impression that I have wasted _money_ and _time_ with consulting your associates.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> It is almost impossible to pay in person but the Apple Store app offers ability to scan the barcode on almost any accessory and pay on the spot for it without ever seeing staff. I do not have many issues with this model, in fact it makes visits to the Apple Store for the odd cable quite easy. However, I did find that sometimes specific accessories are simply not presented and one must flag down staff to have one pulled out from storage.

It is the repair/service story that has really deteriorated over time and Apple would bode well to remember that although PC vendors need to play catch- up they will eventually become good enough.

I did find Joint Venture invaluable. Essentially it is a Pay-to-Play scheme which allows you to book same-day appointments and access the Business Team (which gives a slight discount).

Anybody remember the good old days when you could have AppleCare send you a box and a return label?

<comment><USER43> > It is almost impossible to pay in person but the Apple Store app offers > ability to scan the barcode on almost any accessory and pay on the spot for > it without ever seeing staff.

After you pay what is the next step?

<comment><USER44> You walk out with the product. Though you can ask someone if you want a bag.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> The in store experience has changed with the staff. Two examples that come to mind. I remember going in to buy an iPhone 8 after new prices announced. I spoke to a rep for 2 minutes for him to then to say: "let me get someone for you." Then the actual transaction of buying occurred. Are there so many window shoppers that they have staff just to talk to non-buyers? The second was the genius bar. A speaker blew-out on my MBP, I made an appointment and I am trying to get someone AT THE BAR to tell me how long the repair is going to take before I send it in for service. Meanwhile the person to my left is there because they ran out of hard drive space and cant check their emails. And the person to my right has been there for 4 hours about a phone repair only to trade it in instead. I couldn't believe the genius bar was inundated with those requests. I know I don't need special treatment but I literally need actual hardware help. /rant

<comment> bjelkeman-again The issue with the person with a full disk I recognise. A lot of people are so untechnical/uninterested that they have no idea how to maintain their computers/phones.

I have a friend who is an electrical engineer(!) no less, who bought a new Windows machine when the old one was so infected by malware (kids used it) that it became unusable. Most of my relatives have dedicated siblings or kids providing tech support. Some people don't have this support and end up at the Genious bar.

The number of people I come across who admit to having no backup systems is mind boggling. People who depend on their computers for work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Appointments at the Apple store are a joke. The last 3 times I went in for one, I was acknowledged by a team member and it still took over an hour for them to see me. If I wasn't aggressive about it, it would have been much longer like it was for the half dozen elderly people sitting confused with me.

</comment><comment><USER47> Strange. The article doesn't reflect my experience of Apple stores at all. The only problem I have with them is trying actually to get in past the hordes of kids playing with the latest tech.

</comment><comment><USER48> I walked into an Apple Store twice in the last month:

1\. I walk up to an employee and said, "Want to make an easy sale? I want an iPad Pro 11" with the keyboard and Apple Care." As we were talking with in about 30 seconds after he pulled out his device someone came walking out with the items. I pulled out my phone and payed via Apple Pay. Done.

2\. The next time I walked in, an employee asked me what I was looking for. I said, "I would like to buy a HomePod." He said and showed me exactly who to speak with. I walked over, I told him I wanted a HomePod and he asked which color. I said what do you recommend, as I liked the white, but was afraid it would show signs of getting dirty. He said black (Space Gray). He grabbed a Space Gray HomePod. I paid with Apple Pay and was on my way.

Apple Store @ Mall of America both times.

</comment><comment><USER49> I went in for a battery replacement back in November (Granted this was in the UK not the US).

Booked the appointment online, Went in at the correct time, one of the staff in the store told me "Spoke the people in the back of the store with iPads, they handle genius bar appointments, Spoke to them (took my name), quickly found me in the system and told me they were very busy atm I could wait or rebook (It was lunch time in a city centre), Said I'll wait, Told me to take a seat over there --->, said "tell them to give me a shout as I'm hard of hearing" (Am a little but not too bad, I just wanted to waste my time playing on a mac instead of just sitting at a full table twiddling my thumbs (dead battery on my phone, didn't think about bring my charger with me), told the person "telling the system I'm here" this they laughed and said OK.

10-20ish mins later (Lost track of time, was dicking about on the net), someone shouts my name, got his attention and we went to a quieter table (guess the hard of hearing thing worked :-P). Docked my phone and started running some tests, while running the tests we talked about Work, games (A nice discussion on which was our fav build of Counter Strike).

Yup I needed a new battery, Would take 60-90 mins to replace. Agreed to the repair terms (Yes I took a back up, no I will not sue if you have to wipe my phone, Yes you may claim my first born, etc etc etc). Told them I had ID (They wanted a method to make sure that I was me when picking up my phone, asked "what if I didn't have my ID on me as I don't normally carry it?", said they have other methods they can use like showing the same Credit/Debit Card I used to to book in the job.

Went and got some food, went to visit one of my fav bars in the city centre, went back about 90 mins later and spoke to the same people at the back of the store who had the iPads. They said "all done, someone will be with you soon" 5 mins later I had my phone back with a new battery (showed my id to say I am me).

Apart from the genius bar being busy (Would be nice if I didn't have to wait, but a) I knew I booked a lunch time slot b) I made "plans" not to do anything that afternoon. So not the end of the world for me. But I could see it being a pain in the ass if someone was trying to drop their device off during their lunch break and had to wait around.) I can't say that I had a bad time there.

Store in question if it makes a difference to anyone: New St Apple Store, Birmingham, UK.

</comment><comment><USER50> Meh, if anything the Apple Store is a victim of its own success. For all the complaints in this thread about slow Genius bar experiences, it's important to remember it was originally designed and conceived as a way to teach people HOW to use their new Mac's and iPhones. In the early 2000s Mac's were still considered toys and Apple was trying to get around that by allowing people to learn as much as they can about their new hardware.

Apple consistently gets top ratings for customer service across the industry, and not saying there isn't room for improvement, obviously there is, but point me to another electronics company of Apple's size that is doing it better?

</comment><comment><USER51> This article misses a very obvious point. The reason it takes so long to get help in an Apple store is because those stores are so popular. This isn't Apple Stores losing their lustre. This is Apple Stores being a victim of their own success.

</comment><comment><USER52> Before iPhone, Apple had ~160 Stores, and were expanding as quickly as they could, by 2007 they had nearly 200 Stores. And that was only serving ~30M [1] Mac users and less than 100M iPod users.

So how many stores did Apple add while having an extra 900M iPhone, 300M iPad, 70M Mac _active_ users? 300. As of today Apple had roughly 500 Stores world wide.

Even if they _had_ 1000 Stores worldwide serving their 1B+ Customers, the store to customer count is still insanely high.

Apple was actually expanding Apple Store as quickly as they could all the way to 2015. Given the quality and demand Apple requires it was still opening nearly 1 store per week. Then from 2015 onward there were only 60 Stores opened, most ( if not all ) of them were planned before 2015.

I still think giving Apple the brand image make over in Apple Retail were good, but it doesn't have to a trade off to Genius Bar and Stores Count.

[1]Speaking of Mac users, I have yet to see anyone to point out the number of Mac unit and Churn rate. Tim Cook said half of the Mac were sold to new comers, and they are mostly from China. That is roughly 10M. We would then expect Mac user base to grow at ~10M per year, assuming no one is leaving the ecosystem at a noticeable rate. Except it hasn't. Apple had ~55M Mac users in 2011, they said they were _close_ to 100M users in early 2017. And only manage to hit the 100M in late 2018.

Or May be my analysis is wrong.

</comment><comment><USER53> I was at the Valley Fair Apple Store in Santa Clara to pick up an order recently. It was very busy; a bit uncomfortably so, but to my surprise I was helped quickly and went in and out.

Afterwards, there was a survey, which is not surprising. Knowing Apple, they probably do pay attention to the survey results. If some Apple Stores are having issues, I'm guessing they should know...

My only real complaint is just how packed they get. I was sure I'd be waiting forever to reach an employee.

</comment><comment><USER54> I understand what this article's view, and I share the same frustrations, but every time I go there, it's packed regardless.

<comment><USER55> The apple store where i live is packed too. I think many of those people are in for repairs on their stuff.

Meanwhile, the Microsoft store diagonally located across the mall is usually empty. But some kids are there to play the games on the Xbox side.

peace

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> I love the store itself. The problem is, the ones closest to me are almost 2 hours away, and in HUGE shopping malls that are a pain to get in and out of.

They are packed, but if you make an appointment they usually get to you on time or even early.

Each mall also has a Microsoft store which is a sad abyss of emptiness.

</comment><comment><USER57> It seems that it's not scaling out well at all as Apple products become more popular. It is definitely annoying how all of the appointment slots are constantly filled, which indicates that demand exceeds supply. However, at my local Apple store they check you in and then text you when they are ready so you don't have to wait in the store.

Bizarrely they didn't do this when I bought a phone, and instead made a bunch of us wait outside in the sun for 90 minutes or so. With Apple-logo umbrellas and water. This was the preorder group with assigned time slots, mind you (there was another line for walk-ins.) I would have preferred to check in and have them text me when my phone was ready, as they normally do with service appointments.

</comment><comment><USER58> When I want to buy something from Apple I can buy it from apple.com and have it shipped to me, but the last time I did this their "two day shipping" took a full week. Never again. Or I can buy it from Amazon, but last time I bought an Apple product from Amazon, I didn't notice it was counterfeit until well after the return window. Never again. Or I can buy it from their physical store. Last time I bought AirPods I drove 45 minutes to the Apple Store and had to wait for 10 minutes for the employee who was going to check me out to answer questions for the customer ahead of me, even though all he needed to do was swipe my credit card (there's a category of products that you can't self- checkout and it includes AirPods).

</comment><comment><USER59> I went to the Apple store in Singapore a couple of months ago, they were fairly busy but I got helped pretty quickly, got a new device and someone took me upstairs to get it charged and setup. So just want to add that I had a good experience at my last trip to an Apple store.

</comment><comment><USER60> I have one experience with the Apple store, when I went there to try to get my wife's phone fixed.

I had no idea that's a stupid thing to do, that you can't just go there and ask for help. Actually, I had to go there and try to flag someone down. He told me that I had to make an appointment to get help.

But he couldn't just make the appointment for me. There was a line for _that_. I was told they'd probably be able to get to me in a half hour or so, so I should come back then.

At that point I was able to make an appointment to come back a week hence, when I could get them to actually look at the phone.

They did eventually fix the problem very satisfactorily, but the process to get to that point was nothing less than infuriating.

<comment><USER61> You could have booked an appointment sitting at home in your underwear.

<comment><USER60> I had no idea that "an appointment" was even a thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Finn here. We don't have an Apple store, but I've been to a few in NYC. Just wondering around and looking all the staff run around and people waiting gives me anxiety.

If I buy an Apple product, I either order it with express delivery from the Apple website (not very often) or go buy it from whatever electronics store has it in stock for the cheapest price. I have no idea why I'd want to purchase it from an actual Apple store.

When the keyboard on my MBP broke a few years ago, I just took it to whatever authorized repair shop and gave it to the guy after being second in line. First he did some temp fix, but when I told him I wanted it properly fixed under AppleCare, it was done in a few days.

</comment><comment><USER63> > "It's become harder to buy something, even when the place isn't busy. Buying > a product there used to be a revered thing, now you don't want to bother > with the inconvenience."

Hmm, yes. After work I thought I'd 'just' pass at an Apple store and either buy a new battery or let it quickly replace. No chance: first came the appointment, then I learned that no batteries would be sold and an exchange needed about a week. What now? Ended with buying an Anyoneer at Amazon for a third of the price and not feeling too happy with Apple. (But it started before, there is a reason I needed a new battery for my old (2013 highly 'loved') MBA and bought a new Thinkpad).

</comment><comment><USER64> Unlike many of the comments here my experience at Apple stores has gotten a lot better recently. I've been in twice in the past month for some hardware fixes, and both experiences were great. I got an appoinemt the same day, service was fast and professional and I found there to be an excess of people wanting to help me. This was in San Francisco by the way so I can't speak for other areas. Prior to this I found that appointments were booked more than a week out and there were long wait times even for when I showed up for said appointment. I love the Apple store and find it to be the best retail experience in the biz right now.

</comment><comment><USER65> Why is Apple Store service a thing at all? Service and repairs should happen at a service and repair centre, not at a retail centre.

Service Just Doesn't Work if you try to combine the two. You get huge delays, bureaucratic errors, people waiting and taking up space, and a general air of stress, confusion, and chaos, with everyone running around trying to handle at least two unrelated visitor streams.

It feels to me as if the original intent of retail has been overwhelmed by reality, and the whole could do with a rethink.

The customer experience is usually pretty terrible now, whether it's service or sales. It's certainly not effortlessly positive in any way.

</comment><comment><USER66> I've only been in an Apple Store a few times, and have always thought it a cool store, but just not very practical. At best, I buy a new computer every few years. I kept my first iPad for about five years before getting a new one. I buy a new phone maybe every couple of years.

Despite recent design decisions that I find questionable, thus far Apple products remain the best choice for the work I do, so I don't really want or need to go to the store in person to be impressed. I just order online whatever best meets my requirements.

The last time I bought a computer in person was about 14 years ago. I did buy an iPad case at an Apple store recently...

</comment><comment><USER67> In addition to all these other things, Apple within the past year or so changed the bathrooms in (from what I've heard) all the stores from public to "staff only". What kind of "Town Square" doesn't have a toilet?

</comment><comment><USER68> > There was the time he visited the Easton Town Center location to buy a > laptop for his 11-year-old daughter and spent almost 20 minutes getting an > employee to accept his credit card. In January, Smith was buying a monitor > and kept asking store workers to check him out, but they couldn't because > they were Apple "Geniuses" handling tech support and not sales.

This is nothing new. It was very difficult to just buy a laptop from my local store in 2014. Apple stores have never worked like any other store. The purpose is for passers-by to see lots of people inside as social proof.

</comment><comment><USER69> Nothing but stellar experiences for me so far in Holland. Everything fixed in a day, just got a new screen for free on my MacBook Pro 2011 in Haarlem.

But super hard to get appointments sometimes.

</comment><comment><USER70> Every time I go past/in one, it just looks like it's people wasting time at the mall waiting on someone that's shopping elsewhere, or people there for repairs. 50% of the people there are all Apple employees, and most of them don't seem to do anything but chit-chat.

Every time I walk past a Microsoft store there aren't too many customers, but usually they are hosting a gaming tournament or a code academy with tons of teens/kids.

It's an interesting dynamic.

</comment><comment><USER71> I had a bad experience at the store in SF. The staff all have this very pompous "can't be bothered" attitude and they make you wait a long time in their creepy indoor seating tree park with other hostages that showed up for their appointment. Then you finally get to speak with someone, who can't really do anything other than replace your device. Why couldn't one of the sales people just give me a new device?

What's the point?

</comment><comment><USER72> At Christmas time I had to make an appointment to buy a watch. I waited 15 minutes for my scheduled time slot and then learned they were out of stock.

</comment><comment><USER73> USA: Went to apple store to replace my iPhone 6 battery, after waiting for two hours, an assistant told me to hand of phone and asked me to come back after 3 days (&probably wait 2-3 hours before i get my phone). didn't replace the battery

UK: Went to buy iPhone, had to wait few mins in "line" , bought and came back within 1 hour on opening day ..

</comment><comment><USER74> Apple got too popular and needs 5x the amount of store they have near me in Durham, NC. I can still get service, but it is a chore. Show up before they open, or book an appointment 2 weeks in advance. The only good part is that I used to need to talk to a repair person ~2x a year and now I've gone in like once every 2 years... (still too busy though)

</comment><comment><USER75> The wait times are ridiculous. It took half an hour the last time I was there just to talk to someone.

I was there to spend upwards of $5000 on new hardware and I knew exactly what I wanted - I just needed to pay for it and have someone hand it to me. Total transaction time was over an hour and I would have left if I didn't need it that day.

</comment><comment><USER76> Two things that were features aren't anymore now that I moved to Miami.

I'm tired of Face ID. Give me back Touch ID please. My sunglasses prevent Face ID from working when I have them on, and that's quite often here, and I don't want to switch to a light form of Face ID that doesn't check that I'm actually looking at my phone. Sometimes I temporarily take my sunglasses off to use Face ID.

The cooling design makes my MacBook Pro very quiet, but it doesn't always keep up with the heat indoors here. I've got to the point where I have to suspend my Vagrant box before I close the lid, or there's a good chance it won't wake up when I open my MacBook Pro and I'll have to restart it. I wish it used fans more to keep it cool.

I need to take it into an Apple Store because I think it might be a real hardware problem and not just a limitation or a software problem that causes it not to wake, but I'm not sure. Fortunately we have lots of Apple Stores and the availability is not too bad. There's only one appointment available today and that's 40 miles away in Boca Raton, but there are appointments at about 5 different Apple Stores in the area with appointments available tomorrow.

<comment><USER77> For others who see this and are willing to adjust the settings to use FaceID with sunglasses - just turn off Require Attention for FaceID [0].

Personally, I prefer FaceID (which surprised me!) to TouchID except in bed, when I desperately miss TouchID.

[0] [https://www.imore.com/how-make-iphone-x-face-id-work- sunglas...](https://www.imore.com/how-make-iphone-x-face-id-work-sunglasses)

<comment><USER78> FaceID works fine for me with my sunglasses and "require attention".

I did also have trouble unlocking while laying in bed though. For awhile I thought it wasn't recognizing me without any glasses on, but then I realized that when I don't have any glasses on, I hold the phone much closer to my face, and it doesn't recognize me that way. It unlocks fine without glasses as long as I hold it at the same distance. Still kind of an awkward process.

<comment><USER76> Yes, it works with some sunglasses. My sunglasses are Ray-Bans that aren't very dark. They're a pretty ordinary pair of sunglasses, but they don't work with the default FaceID setting. I think it's a bit random whether you get ones that work or ones that don't, if you're looking for a practical pair of sunglasses and not paying attention to whether it works with FaceID.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> I find the apple store uninviting and uncomfortable. They're generally packed with people standing around... you have no idea where to go or who is available... more obscurely controlled chaos than clear and apparent order. I feel visiting the store is generally going to be bad experience for most people.

</comment><comment><USER80> At my local Apple Store there is now a flipchart at the shop front which features the new Apple products: iPhone, MacBook, iPad.

This is so sad, and reminds me of cheap and greasy sales people but not of Apple.

It looks more like a shop that went bankrupt and needs to sell its inventory ASAP. This impression is really sad.

</comment><comment><USER81> And the App Store too.

Advertising on the App Store really broke my heart, I thought Apple just made money from us all by selling expensive, high quality devices and apps. These ads are a desperate attempt to now make something over and above by selling my attention, what a shame!

<comment><USER82> It feels like a way for Apple to claw back even more than their 30% cut. Even if you have a successful app, now you have to take some of your money and buy the search ads for it, otherwise somebody else is going to be the first result when potential customers come to the store looking specifically for your app.

You can try and drive traffic straight to your store page from outside sources to bypass that search, but that sort of marketing costs money too. And word of mouth searches are going to be through the App Store search regardless.

It was nice when Apple's search felt like it was just trying to help you find what you were looking for. But it's 2019 and we need to put ads in _everything_ now.

<comment><USER83> While I agree that ad sales are disheartening, App Store search has never been that great.

<comment><USER82> It's not perfect, but if I search for "GoodNotes" exactly by name it should give me GoodNotes.

The fact that the search results dedicate most of my screen to Notability (one of their main competitors) is some bullshit on Apple's part.

[https://i.imgur.com/4T7sLXb.png](https://i.imgur.com/4T7sLXb.png)

It would be one thing if I searched for "notebook" or "handwriting" or "notes," but I searched for a specific app _by name_ and they're sending traffic to a competitor because GoodNotes "only" pays 30% of their revenue to Apple, and Apple wants even more on top of that or else a competitor gets their traffic.

Sometimes search is bad because search is a hard problem and it's difficult to know what a user is looking for.

Apple knows exactly what I was looking for. They're just being dicks about it.

<comment><USER83> What's going to happen when Apple rolls out the game subscription? Will they favor those games over publishers that decide not to be part of it?

I think (and hope) that I read that it will be a separate tab. My heart goes out to the few non scammy, paid up front/pay one time to get rid of ads publishers that might be affected, but honestly if all apps that are dependent on ads, in app purchases of coins, power ups and loot boxes disappeared from the store, nothing of value would be lost.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER84> Answer to the question price tag and service!

OBS: Now I open up regular notebooks myself and fix them when I need to do so. No need to pay to repair or pray for someone with MacOS to help anymore, I'm my own service now just spend on parts yay!

</comment><comment><USER85> when my Mac had a serious problem, i was so disappointed by the low level of service at my local Apple Store that I looked on Yelp for a good one. i would have driven a hundred miles to get away from the smug, the problem denials, the repeated trips, the incompetent repairs carried out with defective used parts.

but there weren't any good ones. the Yelp ratings for all the stores in my area were just meh, or downright bad. i felt like i'd been tricked into buying an expensive, unmaintainable hunk of aluminum.

i like Macs, but those experiences made me want to avoid any more Mac purchases.

</comment><comment><USER86> Lost it's lustre (headline) = So spectacularly successful, they're swamped with customers and can't keep up with the demand (long waits described in text).

Illustrated by a picture of an almost empty Apple store.

</comment><comment><USER43> I suppose because I'm in tech, I have the flexibility of shopping at retail stores at off-peak hours, as I have had only pleasant experiences when shopping at the Bellevue Square and South Center malls.

</comment><comment><USER87> When I've seen people doing those sit-down training classes in the store, I wonder if they retain any information at all, because it's in the midst of a massively noisy and distracting environment.

</comment><comment><USER88> "Nobody goes there anymore; it's too busy." \- Yogi Berra

</comment><comment><USER89> The most surprising thing about this is how many HN readers/commenters are actually seeking help at a brick and mortar store full of "geniuses".

</comment><comment><USER90> They are successful in spite of themselves. When you can treat the customer with complete disregard and they still trip over themselves to line up and buy your product, what is onus to change? I find their employees very smug like they are just so important that us common folk can fuck off and wait or simply be ignored until they decide to help/serve us.

I filled out their survey after purchasing two XS Max's (for the fam, I'm a 1+ guy). They never even acknowledged my complaints about the terrible customer service I received.

I guess it works until it doesn't......

</comment><comment><USER91> I've never even SEEN an Apple store let alone been in one. Looking on their site it looks like the nearest one is 90 miles away from me.

</comment><comment><USER92> The only surprise to me about the article is suggesting that this is a recent thing. I've experienced this for years.

</comment><comment><USER93> Need to make an appointment to go to the shop and get up-sold on something?

No longer a shop.

(Note: Store/Shop, same diff.)

I see the Apple Store these days as more of a cult. Sort of like what religions want to be, albeit centred around a computing lifestyle rather than a spiritual one.

Sorry, not sorry for the comparison. It _really does feel like going to church_.

</comment><comment><USER94> I've never set foot in one, and I never plan too.

</comment><comment><USER95> Apple store staff have had cult-member aloofness for as long as I can remember

</comment><comment><USER96> TL;DR;

"Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded."

[1] [https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/08/29/too- crowded/](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/08/29/too-crowded/)

<comment><USER97> The fix seems kinda obvious: Increase supply to meet demand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER98> these kinds of threads are good ones to scan for entitled users. "omg i can't park close to the busiest store at the mall / downtown. i have to wait for help at the busiest store. i can't find the cashier. i could run this show sooo much better "

now to just link the hn username to a resume for black flagging.

</comment><comment><USER99> I think part of it is that Apple doesn't have many interesting new products. I used it be excited about iPhones or iPads but now they just release variations if the same thing I know already pretty well. Why go to a store? And the wait times for support are way too long.

<comment><USER27> > Why go to a store? And the wait times for support are way too long.

"Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded."

<comment><USER100> Filled with people waiting on support issues for devices that "just work". That should tell you all you need to know about the current Apple Store.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER101> I think the slam of less user-friendly products, higher comparative prices, and worse customer support will make any company lose its luster. Apple's done all three, and unless there's a change in the ship's direction, it'll continue bleeding out cash in stock buybacks and dividends and losing premium customers and great employees.

</comment><comment><USER102> They could downsize them to street corner booth for repair needs, or even better just sell some self-help-kits to cover majority of the basic DIY fixes.

I don't use apple, my Dell PC and Thinkpad laptop and Android phones never needed any repair, if they do, most likely I will just repair them myself or buy new ones(e.g. keyboard etc).

Apple will be struggling for a while after the iphone era for sure.

</comment><comment><USER103> The Apple Store is now fully an episode of Portlandia.

It's like a big confusing miasma at burning man where everyone is trying to 'contact' another through signs on the big board "Mine is the pink one by the bottom!" i.e. to differentiate it from the 1000 other pink notes by the bottom ...

Take a goddam number, or have a station where people can go where they get that number.

Instead of the stupid trying to find your blind-date/fixer in a crowd, they go to a _spot_ where you can find them.

The numbers are up on a screen so you know if you have 10 or 30 minutes to wait and you can tell when you're up.

We figured out lines and numbers maybe 2000 years ago but Mesopotamian technology apparently isn't hipster enough for Cupertino.

Please - we want to see an Kumail Nanjiani thing about this on Funny or Die.

</comment><comment><USER104> One main reason the stores anger me is that they're actively disincentivezed to develop PWAs (progress web apps) or cross-platform technologies.

The App Store makes Apple billions.

By locking you down they get the ability to get a cut of your app.

If you could install a mobile app directly from the web, they're cut out of the loop.

They also can't use it as a system of control to block apps they dislike.

I agree that there are times where this might be valuable and that there are APIs that you might want to restrict but then have a fair policy about which apps you block and also have a way to get PWAs approved easily.

Also, it's VERY expensive to get your app there due to their use of Dunn and Bradstreet.

You either have to pay $1000 or you have to wait 1-3 months until your company is approved.

<comment><USER27> What does this have to do with the retail stores that are the focus of this article?</comment></comment>


Americans Are Giving Made-in-China the Cold Shoulder: Bloomberg - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-17/what-do-americans-think-of-made-in-china-polling-latest <comment><USER2> How much do the results of this study matter in real-life? I remember as a child they had a big "Buy American" push. It didn't work, mostly because people aren't willing to pay the premium to buy American, and a company that produces in the US will have to compete against a company that produces in China with far less costs. That's not a realistic or winning solution to say the least.

<comment><USER3> It's like all the faux-outrage over privacy violations by FB et al. When push comes to shove, people don't care enough and they'd rather have it free or cheap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd love to see a site curating products and where they are made. How much of my iPhone is made in China?

<comment><USER5> Old, but this article[0] shows that many of the components are made outside of China. Final assembly happens in China.

[0] [https://www.lifewire.com/where-is-the-iphone- made-1999503](https://www.lifewire.com/where-is-the-iphone-made-1999503)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I hope to see a democratic China in my lifetime. Rationalize the "cold shoulder" however you like. But the CCP has so much more than to answer for beyond their self-interested COVID cover-up. Ask a Uighur Muslim who's fortunate enough to "graduate" from their re-education camp. Or maybe inquire further with one of the untrustworthy who have been black listed by the social credit system. There are so many reasons to give the CCP the cold shoulder. It's also fitting that this article comes out near the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Like another posted earlier though: easier said than done.

<comment><USER7> I wonder if we'll see the day where not buying made-in-china is now racism against Chinese people. Anything goes in 2020 so it's possible!

<comment><USER8> This confuses the notion of a people with that of a state, and supposes that the sum of the people (or their majority) back the practices of the state.

Boycotting a 'Made in X' market is not inherently racist, as it doesn't ascribe value judgments to the people of X. Instead, it promotes a bias towards one economy rather than another, for the purpose of relocating profit rather than because of ideological concerns.

So, if we do see an equation of 'Boycott Made in X' with racism against X, then that will probably be reverse (State of X-run?) propaganda.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Easy to say; hard to do.

</comment><comment><USER10> Dollars to wontons the pollster's pen was "Made in China".

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm really interested in knowing Biden's position on China. So far I haven't seen much, but could have also missed it.

<comment><USER12> You can learn a lot from digging into why the CCP ( chinese communist party ) hates Trump and why the are doing everything they can to block him from getting re-elected ... its really not about Biden's position or lack there of its more about realizing the putative benefits of allowing Trump to push back especially w.r.t. Intellectual Property theft which has been siphoning trillions off past/present/future earnings not only in the US but in the West generally</comment></comment>


This week my startup launched a demo version of our virtual networking app - <AUTHOR> https://apps.apple.com/us/app/connect-club/id1500718006 <comment><AUTHOR> On this new platform, users can gather useful contacts, find a coach, meet for video chatting with the community, and access private, professional groups. Connect.Club has developed a separate niche with an emphasis on attracting useful contacts. The application will not be a replacement for Zoom, but it can safely compete and complement LinkedIn. The company's objective is to create a modern platform with users' personal accounts to help them with their goals for networking. For example, in one application, users could see other people who are in search of a new job or in search of a mentor, startups at the stage of raising investments and seeking investors, and interest clubs and professional communities that are more likely to meet offline or communicate more in chat rooms.

</comment><comment><USER2> How do you intend to compete with LinkedIn and pull users from there to your platform?

Because I'm only using networks which have a critical mass of people. I did recently added Twitter to my repertoire because tech and bc hangout there.

<comment><AUTHOR> We see our advantage in the fact that LinkedIn is a platform where it is convenient to view your resume and communicate with recruiters. But there is no networking in practice. Like in our product!

<comment><USER2> I network on LinkedIn, it's also used in sales a lot

<comment><AUTHOR> LinkedIn so great! But a bit another type of communication, without video.

<comment><USER2> So we typically go to email/ video conferencing all. Don't need another business networking app just cause there's no video on LinkedIn</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>