One of the blogs I’ve been following recently after my experience at the Apple ‘Genius’ bar with a smug doofus who told me I’d have to return my $2,000 laptop because he couldn’t figure out how to turn a screwdriver counterclockwise is ungenius, the chronicles of an ex-Genius detailing life behind the Bar. I haven’t linked it before now because it’s never really as incriminating as I’d like.

Still… Joel and I have a lot of hate going on for the Genius Bar: our visits there have usually resulted in us having to tell the Genius what needs to be done and literally begging them to do it. We’d be a lot more understanding of these idiots’ incompetence if they didn’t wander around grouping themselves in the same bracket as the likes of Sir Stephen Hawking. But since they do, we can’t understand what’s wrong with the entire Genius experience, or how it got fucked up so bad.

Well, J.C. over at ungenius has written a thoughtful post explaining what killed the Genius Bar: the iPod. Geniuses are idiots precisely because 95% of their job involves hard resetting iPods for a living. Where once they had to actually know stuff about Macs and have troubleshooting skills, now all they need to know is how to troubleshoot a device so simple that it’s either broken and needs to be returned or it isn’t and needs to be rebooted.

Interesting stuff if you’ve ever wanted to headbutt an Apple Genius until his brains spilled out of his forehead.

Genius Bar: The Apple Store’s Fading Legacy? [ungenius]

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