Apple St. Johns Town Center — Local services in Jacksonville

I honestly don’t know where to start. I’ve been buying IPhones and Apple products for a couple of decades now and my experience with this Apple store has been a disaster from the start. This location is very crowded and understaffed, it’s unpleasant; they were telling people that it’s a 3 hour wait to buy a product if you don’t have an appointment. The joke is on the customer though, because they only offer appointments to demo the overpriced virtual reality gadget, not to actually have help with a problem that they created. Here’s the problem that they created: I bought a new iPhone online as part of the iPhone upgrade program, which means that you’re supposed to turn in the old phone at the time of picking up the new phone. Sounds simple but the person helping me had no idea about it and told me that my trade in kit will arrive in the mail. The order status shows that I need to return it to the store. I can’t reach anyone at the store and multiple attempts to chat online with Apple, call Apple, text Apple, days of trying to resolve this issue with no help. Nobody at the store has reached out, and Apple is unable to help me, it’s up to the store itself. This might be my last Apple product, I’m very fed up and tired and stressed out about this whole situation. Apple has really gone downhill!!

Update Went back into the store after repeated attempts to return it online with Apple have failed. I was assured by a manager that I would be in and out of the store within about 15 minutes and I was sadly mislead. He wasn’t in but he assured me that there were notes on my account and that I would be helped efficiently by someone. I was not… instead I was met with an unpleasant person who I basically had to plead with to check the notes and that I’m supposed to be helped by a manager. A manger finally comes out and immediately says that they’re busy, but someone should be out shortly to help me out. A half hour goes by and I finally get assigned to someone… Someone who has to finish up with a big group of people before they can help me. So, here I am, standing in the middle of an Apple Store surrounded by crowds of people and nowhere to sit and wait. It took so long in the Apple store that I’m now having to leave and come back later… this is the worst, most unprofessional store I have ever shopped in. I wonder if Apple is trying to kill off its retail stores and go online only with its sales???

Update It took 3 trips to the store, at least a dozen different attempts to call and chat with Apple customer support and to this day, the store itself doesn’t answer its phone; so I couldn’t speak with anyone there, but it’s finally done. Here are some things that I learned along the way in my “journey”. 1. This store is very busy, there are maybe one or two helpful people there, everyone else does not care or maybe they aren’t paid to care. 2. Apple and Apple stores might as well be two entirely different companies. Even if you buy something online, as soon as you choose to pick it up in the store you are stuck only getting customer support/dealing with the actual store and this one doesn’t answer it’s phone. 3. For some reason you can’t accomplish anything by calling Apple support, don’t even try the chat online support; they are awful. 4. Even if it’s their mistake in the first place, be prepared for a long and painful process. Even if a manger assures you that it will be a quick process, it won’t be. They will have you wait, standing, in the middle of a crowded store for eternity. Be warned people, this is one of, if not the worst experience I have ever had with a store and customer service. Apple has really gone downhill… I’m...

3 January 2019: 5:00 PM iPhone editing course with Jakumi. Great class again from Apple. Started promptly and covered little known features for photo editing and photo sharing. The editing tools focused on what comes standard on the iPhone. Some of the better tools are available only on the newest iPhones though all iPhones do have some capabilities to edit and fix your photos. The seating area was plentiful and use of the main video board help facilitate the class. Jakumi was also able to answer questions during the class and still finish on time. The two best gestures of the class was learning how to share photos with the cloud and invite others to also share photos to the same album. This would allow multiple people at a party to collaborate and share photos with the group in real time. The second near feature was the PS photo shop app. This allows people with older iPhones to still create high quality photos. Highly recommend everyone sign up and take this class.

31 December 2018: 4:00-5:00 Another awesome class at the Apple store with Jakumi. In this lesson we got to learn to how to code with robots using the iPad app Swift Playground”. The store is great in that they even provide you with the iPad to use. I highly recommend taking the learn to code part 1 first to understand the basics. That being said Jakumi was able to still walk me and another group of kids through the more advanced class. At some points I didn’t understand the code and commands and how the robot would move but I think this may be something I just need to play around with more. When the class ended Jakumi showed me on iTunes University free materials to learn how to code. Great job Apple. I am impressed.

30 December 2018 class at Apple Store with Jakumi. In this class we learned how to make video using the “clips”. This was a informative class and the instructor made learning the new app relatively easy. The use of the main video board allowed all the users to easily see Jakumi navigate the app and allowed us to easily follow along. The instructor was knowledgeable on the topic and able to answer questions that we had. I reccomend him for future Today at Apple classes.

29 December 2018: Frustrating day today. I signed up for a 10:30 Garage Band course this morning from Apple. I arrived at the store at 10:15 and didn’t see anyone setting up. At 10:30 no announcements had been made for the class. This is the second time I have signed up for a class and it was cancelled. With no notice. The first time was for a class where they made an announcement, I moved to the table where the Apple Genius was and was never acknowledged. The class was just cancelled. So far I have had two classes canceled and two classes which were actually conducted. It’s frustrating because the classes are informative but Apple needs to have timely announcements (if any are made at all) and stick with their schedule. For the two classes that did occur they started exactly on time which was impressive. If Apple can fix this issue I will give them five stars for the class. I will try again for a class at 5:30 PM....

BEWARE of rude customers!

This is long, but it's part review/rant.

First, I need to make it clear that the employees at this store are extremely nice and knowledgeable, it's the CUSTOMERS who can be JERKS! Not all customers, of course, but there were quite a few while I was there who seemed to forget their manners (or maybe they didn't have any to begin with). My bad customer experience all started when an employee informed us 5 minutes before opening that everyone needed to form a line and it would be first-come-first-served. That's when a bunch of customers (who had just arrived) rushed to the door. These people actually ran to get in line knowing there were people (some of them elderly with oxygen tanks who were slow movers) who had arrived well before them (1 hour to be exact).

They then had the nerve to get upset when the people who had arrived first walked to the front of the line to take their rightly deserved spot. I was one of those people who had arrived early, and I was appalled at not only how selfish and rude some of the customers were, but also how bad they were willing to treat the elderly! I'm not elderly, but I was raised to treat them with care and respect. Shame on those who acted like animals at the Apple Store today!

To make my customer experience even worse, once inside, a man who had been standing further back in the line with a woman decided he was going to take his aggression out on ME. So as he was walking past me once he got inside the store, and he purposely kicked me - hard - in the ankle! Yes, you read that right, he physically assaulted me! I said something to the employee and my husband, but I refused to make a big scene. I was just in shock that this grown man was so upset over having to wait a few extra minutes (unlike the long hour I waited) that he didn't even care that he assaulted a woman who was half his size - and this was all because he wanted to act childish and throw a tantrum because he didn't get there first. What is wrong with people these days?

You want to be served first? Then show up early people! And be prepared to wait. Bring your phones, iPads, iPods, laptops, Apple watches, whatever, just be prepared to wait (and please do so patiently and without assaulting other customers).

The only reason I didn't give this place 5 stars is because I almost couldn't find it. It's been a while since I went to the St. John's Town Center Apple Store, and I didn't know they had moved. Their Apple sign was barely visible since it blended in with the wall and it looked like it was all part of the Tesla store. So if anyone is having trouble finding this place, I suggest looking for the Tesla store. It's right next to it. Other than that, this is a nice store. Very clean. Awesome customer service. Yes, there's a wait here, but it is what it is. You don't like it, then...