The apple store technical support is called the Genius Bar.     If my experience today is any indication then the definition of genius is now “poor customer service”.

I have been having battery issues with my iPhone 5 for several months. The phone can be fully charged and within two hours is down to 40% battery or less. I finally found an article on line that said Apple acknowledged there was an issue with some phones and was starting a replacement program.    After checking my serial number against the list I determined that my phone was one of the ones covered in the recall as was my husbands.

We called the local store number, went into automation hell and finally got connected to a customer service person somewhere. She said she could make appointments for us today at 4:30 and 4:40. We had her do that. We made the half hour trip to the store to be told that we did not have appointments (apparently they were lost in automation hell too) but we could wait.(Strike one)

We got on the wait list and had a seat at the “genius bar” (they really need to serve margaritas). 20 minutes later a young man called our name and checked our phones by some voodoo diagnostic tool on his iPad. My phone? The voodoo diagnostic said my battery was just fine and dandy. I tried to explain to the young man what had been going on but he just kept pointing to the voodoo iPad app that said my phone was just fine (the phone, by the way, was down to 40% battery and hadn’t been used). Too bad, so sad, can’t do anything for you, don’t let the imaginary door hit you in the ass. (A genius would have listened ,Strike two)

Then he checked my husbands phone with the voodoo application. It came back that it needed service. Ok, no problem there right?   Wrong.  They have to order the new battery. They don’t have them in the store.  This will mean another half hour drive down, wait in another line, etc. (Strike Three! You’re out!)

Good customer service would have been the original person on the phone actually making an appointment, checking to make sure the store had batteries in stock and letting us know that they did not.

We are Apple people. We own lots and lots of Apple things. I’m rethinking that.

But right now I’m going to sit at an honest to goodness genius bar. The one in my kitchen that serves margaritas.