The Apple Store in Soho (Manhattan) is a favorite of ours, but only because we enjoy running our greasy thumbs across the once-immaculate products on display. The Genius Bar—Apple’s haughty name for their customer service desk—we avoid with extreme prejudice; We’d rather mail our faulty products back to Apple than wait in a line for hours to talk to a service tech—especially when their service can be so uneven.

Jon Collins had a simple problem with his Powerbook’s battery, but even though he was told to expect his replacement unit by the first of the year, it was the seventh of January before he had his resolution—and only after asking to see the store manager.

What’s the point of a Genius Bar when they pull the same brush-off techniques of every other company out there?

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