(image courtesy Macrumors)
The other day Judie and I were in Manhattan for the Dell/Intel create work inspired event and we decided that we needed to make a pilgrimage to the Apple Store at Grand Central Station. If you have not been there you should make a point of stopping in the next time you are in Manhattan. The place is amazing. To have such grand open spaces as the terminal and then to have the Apple store fill in the different rooms on the balcony is nothing short of impressive. Traditional grandeur filled with the most innovative new technology – what could be better?
Judie was leaving for Barcelona just a few hours later and the smart cover on her iPad 2 was looking a little ratty. She, of course, would have none of that, so she walked over to the accessory room.
She found the cover she wanted and, while she and I were there and she was making her decision my eyes fell on Belkin’s Live Grip Action Handle for the iPhone. I knew I had to have the $39 accessory, so I grabbed one and we went over to the Apple store representative to pay.
“Do either of you have an iPhone?” If you do you can simply check out using the Apple Store App.
I opened the Apple Store App on my iPad, I scanned the barcode on the item and it popped right up. It then asked for the password to my iTunes account and, literally three seconds later I had a receipt for the purchase.
From start to finish it took under 15 seconds. Judie, however, did things the old-fashioned way. She pulled out her credit card, the Apple store employee scanned it, Judie signed, and then she too was ready to go. Given the choice, Apple’s quick check out using the Apple Store application is definitely the way to go.
Just another way that Apple makes it simple to part you from your money. And that’s where part two of this story steps in. Carly’s father just had a quick question and ended up spending much much much much much more than he bargained for.
My mom purchased an iPhone over the weekend. This was very exciting for her since she could finally retire her aging Blackberry. The first thing she did was activate iCloud on her iPhone, which is great, except that my parents share an Apple ID, and so her contacts and my dad’s became commingled.
This morning when I arrived at work, my dad outlined the issue, and we decided that while I was 99% sure setting up a new iCloud account for my dad would fix it, I didn’t want to mess up their contacts further. So at lunch, we headed to the Apple Store for a consultation.
First, the employee fixed the iCloud issue by walking my dad through deleting iCloud on his iPhone and then setting up a new account. My dad was thrilled and decided as long as he was in the store to ask about the iMacs. Now, my parents have sworn for the last two years that they will finally replace their aging Dell tower. That thing is at least 10 years old, and I am pretty sure it’s main function these days is to whirr angrily at you until you give up on using it. Still, they’ve said for two years they will be replacing it. My parents are not quick to adopt new technology.
So the nice patient Apple store employee walked my dad to the iMacs, explained the specifications and options, and my dad just looked like a kid in a candy store. I figured this would be a multi-step process: he’d look today, discuss getting the iMac for a few more weeks, spec it out online, wait for the moon to fall into the right alignment, and then maybe when the Dell was old enough to qualify for a driver’s license they’d buy an iMac.
Instead, partway through a demo on the magic trackpad, my dad had his credit card out and ready to go. No hesitation. Even the Apple Store employee was shocked!
Of course, now that both my parents have iPhones, MacBooks, iPads, and iMac, I guess I can’t tease them about being technophobic anymore! None of this would have happened if they didn’t have the Apple Store nearby. Knowing they could walk in and have a real live person help them with anything and everything related to their devices is what made them so willing to go all-in on Apple. The spontaneous purchase, though…that I will have to chalk up to the Apple Store’s reality distortion field!