Apple Fashion Island — Attraction in Newport Beach

Rather than calling it the “Genius Bar,” they should call it the “Waiting Bar.” I will never step foot in another stuffy, overcrowded, long-wait-time Apple Store again—especially when the staff doesn’t seem particularly adept at fixing broken iPhones. I had an absolutely terrible experience when they charged me $360 to repair a screen on a phone that was under warranty through T-Mobile. After the repair, the phone came back with a new error—either pre-existing and ignored, or directly caused by the faulty repair itself. A knowledgeable rep at T-Mobile actually listened to me and explained that the touchscreen wasn’t working because Apple had installed the new screen too tightly. He said it was a pressure issue, which made complete sense—because when I picked up the phone at the Fashion Island Apple Store, I could tell something was off. I just didn’t know what. Despite my concerns, and the fact that I paid for a non-refundable $360 repair, the “kind” Genius Bar staff told me the phone was now unrepairable—and sternly refused a refund. No explanation, other than Grant (the supposed store manager) saying, “This is a new problem. It passed the diagnostics.” So basically, Apple claims a new issue just magically appeared after their diagnostic-approved “repair”—and now it’s somehow my problem. Grant didn’t understand a word I was saying and actually seemed offended when I said, “This is like going to a car mechanic who gives you back a half-repaired car, and now wants you to pay another $560 to fix the new problem—likely caused by him in the first place.” He offered no accountability. In fact, after I asked for a receipt, the story shifted. The receipt said my phone was repairable... if I paid another $580. At that point, I was understandably frustrated and asked, “Why would I trust Apple with another repair if you couldn’t fix it the first time?” The staff clearly didn’t care that they were sending me away without an operable phone. To make matters worse, you need an operable phone to make a Genius Bar appointment. If your phone is broken, you can’t verify your identity or schedule anything online. So you have to physically return to the crowded store just to wait—again—for someone at the “Genius” Bar who might be able to fix it. What I expected was basic customer service: take the phone back, fix the mistake, waive the additional charge, or refund me the original $360—especially since the phone was still under warranty. And don’t get me started on Apple’s fragile screens. If Apple is so advanced, why can’t their “Genius Bar” figure out how to make a screen that doesn’t break so easily? It’s not a crazy idea—just basic innovation. I’m done with Apple Stores. From now on, I’ll go directly to the experienced people at T-Mobile or Verizon. It takes Apple five times longer to maybe fix your phone, and they’ll still charge you for a repair that made things worse. Long story short: Apple needs to seriously step it up. No customer should ever go through what I did with Grant and his “Genius Bar” team. I had to make four trips and wait a total of six hours, only to be told to leave with a broken phone—after paying $360. I guess “Apple Care” should be called “ at Apple we actually don’t care.” Maybe I’m expecting too much in a world where people do far worse to one another. How can we expect...

Unfortunately this is one of the worse Apple stores that I have ever been to. Frankly, there has been a significant decline in quality and customer experience with almost all Apple stores for many years but I have had one of the worst experiences with this store. First of all, I have been there before Covid-19 last year, so there was no Pandemic related excuses.1- I had an appointment but it took almost an hour for someone to show-up in an empty store. 2- I brought my Macbook with an obvious hardware failure, their repair shop just formatted the flash drive and called me to pick it after "observing" my computer for 4 days, telling me everything is working great. 3- When I wanted to make sure everything was working, it took only 5 mins for my Macbook to crash. 4- This is the best part- from the moment I sat on the gen. bar to the time I left the store, each and every employee tried to sell me a new Macbook rather than carefully listening and coming with a working solution. And since I had to sit and wait for hours for them to even to show up and then a couple of days later to deliver my "repaired" Macbook, I listened the same terrible sales pitch happening to every customer who owns a Macbook that is older than 3 years! So I took it to another repair shop and they almost immediately spotted that it was a logic board related issue and repaired it in less than 3 days without replacing my logic board or trying to sell me a new Macbook! I really do hope one day Apple goes back to its original roots to be a customer experience centric organization. I really do...

Overall...I think this is a nice store. I had reservations about the customer service when I first moved here, which is why I took off a star, as well as the seeming 3-1 ratio of Apple employees to customers (and still no one can help me buy a Mac?). The Genius Bar is where this store really makes up for any shopping shortfalls. The experts will spend a decent amount of time to fix and understand your issues. Nonetheless, the store follows Apple’s corporate policies like they are literally the word of God. Which if you have an issue that is not addressed by the limited title subjects that Apple allows for repairs, you may have to come prepared to fully and very clearly vet out your device concerns. Nonetheless, folks here seem reasonable and try to understand if your issue is unique.

I came in earlier today and the Genius Bar expert, Cassie (spelling?), who worked with me on my Apple watch probably deserves some sort of Apple Medal of Honor. Mama was not only super(!!!!) peeved, but she was on a few hours of sleep. I had no patience to hear any of the typical Apple nonsense; I literally pulled up an opened Apple watch diagram on my phone (yeah...I went there) and went to town understanding why my watch was overheating. This poor lady spent probably an hour+ with that version of me, and still managed to smile and wish me a great day. Hopefully, Apple fixes this overheating issue. I cannot say that my appointment today fully restored my faith in Apple, but at least it was a nice experience after a string of less...