Apple Old Orchard — Attraction in Niles Township

Today, June 23,2025, around 7:15pm. I wish I could rate this experience below zero. This was not only my worst experience, but it deeply affected my two young children as well. My husband, my 8-year-old daughter, my 1.5-year-old son, and I went to an Apple Store to purchase an iPad—primarily for my daughter’s use. She was very excited and wanted to choose the color and Apple Pencil herself. When we informed the staff that we were ready to buy, a woman named SARAH ARAGON (not sure of the spelling), who introduced herself as the store manager, came over to help. From the moment she arrived, she treated us in a mean and disrespectful way. I told her I am a college student (and showed my college ID) and that I wanted to make the purchase using Apple’s educational pricing. At that point, instead of speaking to me, she turned to my daughter and sarcastically face mimics said, “Are you a college student?” She then added, “I don’t trust you” implying that I was being dishonest because my daughter would be the one using the iPad. (I of course show and proof with my college id). That kind of comment—directed at a child—is absolutely unprofessional (even abusing child psychologically) and completely inappropriate. As her mother and the person making the purchase, I explained clearly: I am the college (PhD) student, I am paying for the iPad with my credit card, and it should not matter who ultimately uses the device. Sarah continued to insist, saying again that she didn’t trust me because my daughter would be using the iPad. Whatt??? Does apple manager decide who uses my ipad at my home???? I told her that it is up to me who uses it—it is my purchase. Her behavior was not only unjustified, but also offensive and humiliating, especially in front of my children. UNPROFESSIONAL and PERSONAL!! She should have ask “can I see your college id”, that should have been it. But Sarah keep continue with personal ideas unprofessional approach and be offensive in front of my children. She stole my 30mins with humiliating me. My husband was holding our toddler, and I tried to remain calm and respectful throughout. I even asked her not to speak that way in front of my children, who were visibly scared—my daughter’s eyes were filling with tears. But Sarah continued to raise her voice and behave aggressively. I did not speak to her rudely or say anything inappropriate. I repeatedly asked if another staff member could help us instead, or lets keep forward step but she refused, saying, “I am the manager, and I won’t direct any other staff to help you unless you stop being disrespectful.” She is out of her mind!! She is there to help us, not using her managerial force on us. Again, I had done nothing disrespectful—I simply wanted to buy a product using a benefit I’m qualified for, and avoid being publicly embarrassed in front of my children. Sarah used her position not to assist us but to belittle us. Forget manage anything, she created new issue from nowhere! What a great manager skills she showed!! There was no actual issue—she created a problem where there was none and dragged it out for more than 30 minutes. I was even ready to leave the store, but I stayed because I knew I was right and had done nothing wrong. There are security cameras and other staff who witnessed everything. I am confident any review of the footage will show that I remained calm and polite, while Sarah acted unprofessionally and unfairly. This experience was extremely upsetting. It’s heartbreaking to see your child excited about something, only to be humiliated by an adult (a manager) in a store—especially someone in a position of authority like a store manager. Sarah’s behavior reflects poorly not only on her but on Apple as a brand. No one—especially a family with children—should be treated this way while trying to make a simple purchase. I am formally reporting this incident and sincerely hope it is taken seriously. So this store is a big NO NO. Shame on...

Horrible service. Repair #R211855310. Sorry this is long but I just want to warn everyone of the month-long ordeal I've had to endure with this store/Apple.

Took my phone in while still under warranty because one day in the middle of the day the battery started draining like a countdown clock after being fine for a full day and then some on one charge for almost a year.

I made an appointment and showed up on time, while in line with only one person in front of me that the service guy (in board shorts! I think his name was Josh, obv. to match his bro shorts) talked to for 10 minutes, he cancelled my appointment and told me it'd be an hour before someone could see me. WHILE I was standing in line waiting for him!

When I finally got serviced, they thought I don't know how to use my phone/set my settings and I did something to make the battery drain so fast. So they made me wipe everything and take it back. So I did, no change. I came back a few weeks later because the store is about an hour away from me. They just wiped it again. I knew it wouldn't make a difference so this time I didn't leave the area and stuck around, went shopping with my phone in my pocket without using it or re-installing any apps or doing any back-ups. Battery drained 15% on a "new" phone within an hour without using it. So I went back to the store had another tech examine it, he checked the battery stats to make sure I wasn't lying about not using it.

This is when they finally saw I'm not dumb/crazy and agreed to replace the battery, but since they made me go through the entire song and dance and it was now 8:15pm (my appt was at 6:30) they wouldn't be able to fix it the same day so I'd have to drive another hour the next day to come pick it up.

I called the next day to put an alternate pick up on my repair service when they told me the repair was "unsuccessful" and they'd give me a "new" phone - "new" was said to me by two people - a Ness and I forgot the guy's name.

Apparently "new" is a term Apple uses very loosely because I got a refurbished phone where no one can hear me when I talk to them including Apple! The only way I'm able to talk on this phone is with my headphones in. If I put it on speaker no one can hear me, if I take it off speaker and talk normally on the device, it sounds like I have my sound setting on the lowest or like the person is really far away from the phone.

When my alternate pick up came up (IT guy with plenty of experience with these things) they said the motherboard died, but he saw in the notes on their screens that they replaced the battery, put the phone to charge overnight, and it wouldn't turn on the next day.

A battery replacement is straight forward and easy, and they broke my otherwise new and perfectly functioning phone in the process while still under warranty, and then replaced it with a "new" BROKEN phone.

As soon as they send me another "new" replacement phone, I am selling this POS and going back to Android with a google pixel which has a better DxO camera rating than Apple's 7 anyway, not to mention a headphone jack.

Bottom line: With their prices and incompatibility with other technologies you'd think you'd be treated at least like a decent human being, but their customer service policies seem like something straight out of Seinfeld's "Soup Nazi" handbook. I will never buy anything Apple again, it is...

Took my fiance's older iPhone SE (that she cherished) in for a battery refresh since the battery health menu was showing it was due for replacement. She takes extremely good care of her belongings/electronics, so much so that you would think it was a brand new phone if it weren't for the poor battery health screen. Now if you look up her particular model you would see that it is quite small, perfect for her smaller hands and it's been difficult finding a upgrade/replacement phone that is as comfortable, so she's been trying her best to keep the phone in good shape. I wanted to suprise her by taking the phone in for the battery replacement and just consider the cost an investment since it may help the phone last a little while longer. Now, I mentioned the phone was in good shape (hard to tell it was already a few years old), until I put it in the hands of this store... The first time I brought it in it took several hours and at first quick glance it appeared that the battery replacement procedure went successfully. I remembered also being relieved that no data was lost during the process (data loss was a disclaimer/risk I was aware of). My fiance started to use the phone for coming weeks and started to complain that it was abnormally hot to the touch and that there was a lot of white light on sections of the edges of the screen (later learned this was called light bleeds). It seemed the phone lost some integrity/seal during in the hands of the Apple tech. It was never like this before and it really upset her and she wished I never took it in. The issue just became more and more jarring over the coming weeks. When I brought the phone back in, a manager apologized and acknowledged the poor repair and offered to redo it. I agreed and came back a few hours later. I took a look at it upon return and the light bleed wasn't there and I was glad there was no data loss. Over the coming weeks we noticed that some of the edge on one side of the phone was uneven and not flush with the rest of the phone, sort of stucking out and wobbly, right where the screen meets the metal frame and where the seal is. It also has small light leaks around the ear speaker and upper parts of the phone where the screen buldges as well as some parts of the seal in that area. Its as if the screen wasn`t tightened/sealed thouroughly or something was not properly put back together. The phone also started getting heating issues in that same area getting too hot to touch that upper corner, as well as the battery dies quickly and behaves odd (odd percentage jumps). This all happened awhile ago and it took me quite some time to finally leave this review since we were just so frustrated with the idea of giving them a 3rd chance that we just lost hope in the phone and now it just feels like it's on it's last strings. Which is too bad because there, again, aren't really any options for newer compact phones that have a home button and headphone jack like this one did. I was hoping I could suprise her with the newer 2025 16e (aka the newest SE) but its unfortunately not on the smaller side, oh well. I wish things didn't go so poorly here with her phone. I regret having my hopes up that I was giving her tiny phone a little new lease on life and only ended up making...