Apple Puerta del Sol — Local services in Madrid

An Unexpected Disappointment with Apple’s Technical Support

In January 2025, I purchased an iPhone 16 Pro with 512 GB of storage — a device I trusted for its reputation, quality, and price. However, just four months later, I’ve encountered a surprising issue: burned pixels on the camera, visible between the 1x and 2x zoom levels. I turned to Apple’s official technical support expecting a transparent and professional solution. Unfortunately, the response was quite disappointing.

According to the technical team, the damage is accidental and attributed to me as the user. I was told that an external laser likely struck the camera while recording, causing the pixel burn. As an example, the technician mentioned that certain vehicles — such as some Volvo models — are equipped with lasers that, if filmed directly, could damage the camera sensor.

I then made a reasonable request: to perform a technical assessment of the device to determine whether the issue was due to a factory defect or external damage. Apple, however, informed me that such an analysis is not possible, as their internal quality control processes are “sufficient to guarantee” that the device left the factory in perfect condition. In other words, they cannot demonstrate how or when the damage occurred, but still assume it was my fault.

So now I must ask: do I need to worry about what I point my camera at when taking a photo or recording a video? Can an invisible, undetectable, and unavoidable laser accidentally destroy the sensor of a high-end iPhone — and I, as the user, must take responsibility?

The situation is, quite frankly, embarrassing. I still have more than 8 months of warranty left, until January 2026, and yet I am being asked to pay for a camera replacement due to a hardware failure that could not have resulted from normal and reasonable use.

Apple, trust in a product is not only built on its design and power, but also on the support offered when something goes wrong. In this case, that support has been...

Extremely poor customer service. Having an Apple benchmark across Latin America and various in USA, I need to say that I´ve experienced the most disrespectful situation in Puerta del Sol. Two days, two situations:

1- Was in to purchase a MacPro, sadly it was out of stock so I decided to take a look around to purchase other gadgets and come later. While doing so with my wife and 2 babies I was intercepted by an employee telling me that the store was about to close and needed to leave, even standing in front of me and preventing my way through; I remarked I was on my way out through the other aisle, however the employee followed us saying "You need to leave because I want to go home" (clearly not the attitude I´ve seen in Apple being a customer (not playing around with iPads and using free wifi). Called the supervisor but he rather defended the employee instead of looking for a solution.

2- Went back to purchase the MacPro, and was directed to an "express checkout" with a queue of 10 people (anywhere else the person who boards you is able to process the payment right with you). Now, the girl on the express checkout was nothing less than rude, told my wife with 2 kids to go herself to pickup the accessories for the MacPro upstairs, laugh when the credit card didn´t go through the 1st time and more sadly used ironic language on "how things were done in Spain compared to Latin America".

The only positive was the store Manager who interceded, assigned a different employee and was candid for the situation.

Suggestion is to train employees in customer service and evaluate the ratio of staff to real customers (avoiding them to focus its service on the +80% of people just playing with iPads or...

Terrible service. A month ago I went to the Apple store because my Macbook Pro all of a sudden didn’t turn on anymore. They told me that the hard disk stopped working and that I had two options: let Apple replace the hard disk or replace the hard disk myself to save some money. I opted for the second option as they told me that I could come back with the new hard disk and they would install the OS for free. Today, I went back with my Macbook with a new hard disk installed and they told me that the hard disk could still not be found. I was surprised because I tested the new one before installing it to make sure it works. They did some other tests and all of a sudden they found water damage on my logic board even though I have never spilled any water on or near my Macbook. They told me it would cost €500+ to replace the logic board. I told them this was terrible service because now I bought a new hard disk for nothing and the problem is all of sudden something else. A problem that also can’t be true as I have never had a water near my Macbook. They offered a discount of the amount of the price of the new hard disk (€100) if I would buy a new Macbook but I already bought a new one. I wanted to accommodate them as well so I said that I would be OK with buying an Apple Watch with the same discount but they told me they can only give a 5% discount on an Apple Watch! This is nowhere near the price I paid for my useless second hard disk. So I left the store with a broken Macbook, two hard disks that work perfectly fine but I have no use for and no solution. Again,...