No, not the machines.  I still think they are over priced.  But their service.  We made another 2 trips out there yesterday (to the Apple Store).  But now I know how to make a reservation before going.

The first trip (and the second) was for my Son's iPod.  For some reason it wiped all his songs and then would not let him re-add them.  So we took it in and I let him do all the talking.  And the tech wiped it (the songs are still on the computer) and we went home.  And all seemed to be well.  But at about the same point of adding songs as before, it wiped them again! 

Ok, so I dont know iPods.  but I do know computers.  And this is a problem with the computer, not the software.  But what?  Like I know?  So we went out again.  And again I let my son do the talking (he will make a good tech one day as he had the exact error message written down).  So the (new one this time) clerk says "What is the problem?".  My son starts to explain and then he starts to say "Ok, we will reformat the iPod and....." and I cut him off with a wave of my hand and pointed to my son.  Who then went on to give him the Paul Harvey version - i.e. the rest of the story (as in it did it twice).

Zip, bing, and 10 minutes later, we walked out with a new unit.  No ifs ands or complaints!  Now that impressed me!  So far (and this is 24 hours later), all seems to be well with his iPod.  And I am impressed with their expertise and (somewhat) with their service.  As long as you have a reservation, you can get excellant service and competant service.

Now that I know how to do that on line, it is not so bad.  And the help cant be beat.

On a side note, not related to my travails, I did see them help a Mac customer.  When the "Genius" (that is what they are called, it is not a snide remark) could not help her as it was a problem with 3rd party software, they found another "Genius" that had experience with that package.  It was obvious the user was clueless (and probably a PEBKAC error) but they never were condescending or nasty.  Always professional.

I may not be buying a Mac soon (I figure in about a year), I am buying stock.  I am impressed!