Apple Tacoma Mall — Local services in Tacoma

I don't like leaving negative reviews, but sometimes it's necessary for the public good. My recent support experience at this location was very poor.

I have a 2018 15" MacBook Pro. It needed a battery replacement. the battery replacement for this model is tedious. Apple will replace it for $250. This is what I took it in for.

I set an appointment, arrived for the appointment, was greeted and checked in, then fully ignored for over an hour. Many people came for service and left again while I waited. They were busy, but I couldn't get a tech or associate to make eye contact. over an hour after sitting, during a lull, I managed to interject myself into the very end of a conversation between a customer (who arrived WELL after I did and was now checked out and leaving) and a tech. I informed the tech I had been allegedly checked in over an hour prior but hadn't had contact since. The tech discovered the process hadn't been completed on their end, and repeated the process again. In short order, I was finally seen.

Stephanie, the attending associate, was polite and courteous, and very understanding. She informed me about the battery replacement cost, then requested I leave my machine with them for the day so someone in the back could take a look at it in order to verify that the battery was the issue. She was kind and professional throughout. Stephanie is the only one that deserves any stars.

I was called later that evening and informed that unfortunately, the battery had been tested, and it was not the only issue, and in fact the entire main logic board would need to be replaced, as well. The flat rate for this is $698.

This surprised me. It surprised me because I used to run an Apple tech shop. I was in that world for many years. Simply put, I had already run the diagnostics and verified it was the battery. But replacing batteries for models from this time-frame is tedious, because the batteries are attached directly below the trackpad with an adhesive that works very well. You have to be careful with batteries- damaging them can cause them to catch fire. To remove them, you basically have to disconnect everything inside the case- again, it is a tedious process. I get not wanting to do it. But for $250 and the fact that the company offers the service, I expect it to be done- properly.

In order to truly verify that the battery is the issue- especially in cases like mine, where the machine was failing startup entirely due to the bad battery- you have to remove the bottom case and manually disconnect the battery, then power on the machine from an external charger. This is because in this model the battery is in the direct path of the external power source, so if it is bad and attached, external power also fails to boot the machine, hence the requisite battery disconnect. It's not extremely difficult, but it isn't exactly easy, either. I get it- but I didn't design this thing, and I don't professionally service them, either.

So, knowing all of that, I asked if they were sure and what had been done to bring them to this conclusion. I was told directly the battery had been disconnected, and that the machine still hadn't started up. Furthermore, I was told directly that the diagnostics had also shown issues with the MLB, and needed to be sent out for repair- the flat rate was now $698.

I was dubious. I opted out of the service, and picked my machine up the next day. In the notes on the form I had to sign in order to get my machine back, I noticed it stated I was not running the most recent version of MacOS. Again, I found this strange, because I happen to know that I am.

So I had another professional look at it. Battery is now replaced, diagnostics show all is good across the board.

Apple techs never actually tested the battery, they never detached it for verification- they never cracked the case. In short, they didn't do their due diligence, and then blatantly lied about it. They couldn't be bothered, and went for the money grab instead.

Unless you hate your money, go to a...

My 5 month old Macbook reported the battery needed service. Thus began a horrible experience at the Apple Store:

The Good: Friendly greetings from the "geniuses*" (good) and covered under 1-year warranty. *this is what they call themselves I'm just the messenger.

The Bad: No batteries in-stock. 2-3 days order. For the flagship laptop with an integrated battery (the least reliable component), they don't carry batteries in stock??

Store has 30 laptops in the repair queue. It will take 7-10 days. So, I'm looking at 1 1/2 weeks without my laptop - which I use for many things, including my profession.

So, I am offered an alternative: they will send it out for 3-5 days to "the depot" for repairs. Caveat: They will wipe my hard drive, so I will need to restore that myself. ???? Wipe the hard drive? I'm told it's for "security reasons"... Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but if the real concern is security: What's to keep the depot from copying my data before they wipe the drive? What's to keep the depot from simply swapping my drive and replacing it with a new blank drive? Either way, I have no idea whether my data has been taken. So I fail to see why this is a good explanation. It's downright idiotic to wipe a hard drive simply to replace a battery.

So, I decide to let the store fix it and take the extra wait time and the unnecessary drive wiping. Caveat: I'm asked for my username and password so they can work on it. ??? Username and password to replace a battery? 5 minutes before this conversation I watched the "genius" plug an external drive into my laptop which ran a full diagnostic (confirming the battery was defective) without needing my username and password. My logical question: Why do you need that to replace a battery? Answer, we need to see the battery in the OS. Well, correct me if I'm wring but you could simply boot OSX from an external service drive and confirm it that way. Right?

"Genius" get terse. "I'm just trying to help you". I say yes, but it's a logical question and I'm just interested in the answer. He offers to setup a guest account for testing then remove it afterwards. Whatever. Again, not necessary.

I think the one thing that the genius bar is responsible for is making customers satisfied with the service and the Apple brand in general by providing great help and service. In this case, I can safely say that this particular store has failed in that regard for me.

A 30 laptop 7-10 day repair backlog speaks to two possible problems: either they are not working fast enough due to lack of resources (money), or the products are shoddy and often need repair - either way it doesn't look good for Apple to me.

Offering inane / incorrect answers to logical questions, then getting short with the customer when the answers are questioned reasonably.

Wiping perfectly good hard drives when the repair is unrelated to the OS or the hard drive. This is obviously done to save effort in the repair depot - not as a customer convenience. They wipe the drives back to a known/current OS configuration so they don't have to deal with a customer's possibly corrupted environment. It has nothing to do with security. And this makes sense unless the only thing being replaced is the battery. They need to change...

Went in to get help with my new iPhone 15 pro. The camera wasn't focusing properly.

I walked in and stood in front of a group of employees chit chatting, eventually one of them asked if I needed help and I said yes and they asked if I had an appointment. I replied yes again, and as this woman was looking me up a man next to her said "I see a (my name) scheduled for 5:50pm is that you?" It was 5:30pm. I said yes, I can wait the 20 minutes if needed, but he said he could help me then.

We went over to a table and he explained that sometimes removing everything from the device and doing a hard reset and then reloading all my info is better than downloading everything from the cloud (I forget why he said this is) so he asked if I wanted to try that. He explained that I'd have to redownload all my apps and re-login to everything, and reset all my preferences and whatnot and my screen set up but that all of my actual information (texts, contacts, etc) would be preserved. I said let's do it, and he proceeded.

After things go booted back up and I was in the process of downloading my apps and signing back in and all that I noticed that about half of my contacts weren't showing up. I called the guy over and asked him what was going on. He said that he suspected some of my contacts were Gmail contacts rather than icloud contacts and that once I logged in to my Gmail account and granted permission to my contacts they would be repopulated. I went to login, and got a notification to go to Authenticator, but when I went to Authenticator it told me to go back to Gmail, which then displayed a message telling me to open the Gmail app (which is what I was already in). He looked at it for a bit and went in the same circles I had just gone in, and then handed my phone back to me and just said "sorry, weird". I was like, ummmm, you're not going to help me? He said he'd never seen that happen before and wasn't sure what to tell me.

Eventually I made my way over to a computer to see if I could figure anything out by trying to login to Gmail on a computer rather than through the app. A different associate came over, a very petite Asian woman in a baseball hat, and asked if I needed help. I explained to her what had happened and that I was left to figure things out on my own and she took it upon herself to make this her problem as much as mine. Together we were able to get things sorted out after over an hour of Googling, searching through Reddit, and changing some Gmail settings online.

The fact that the original dude just walked away and told me there was essentially nothing he could do, while then going and standing with his work buddies leaning against a table doing literally nothing but gabbing, is beyond infuriating. I was late to pick up my 1 year old because of this situation, and unable to contact her sitter because of not having access to all my contacts. I think by the time I left the Apple Store it was 7pm, and remember I had arrived at 5:30pm.

Absolutely ridiculous, awful customer service from that guy, and many thanks to that...