In response to my two previous columns regarding my experiences inside (camping out on the floor) and outside (hanging with a Windows laptop user) of the local Apple Store, many of you have written in with your own stories about your own local Apple Store going to great lengths to make your life as a Mac user just a bit easier. I'd like to share some of them here:
A year and a half ago, I went on my honeymoon with the wife. We had a modest trip to Southern California and to Las Vegas. We kept it simple cause we knew we were going on a month long trip to China this past x-mas.
Anyhow...I wasn't allowed to bring my laptop on the honeymoon (obviously), but while touring malls in LA, San Diego and Las Vegas, I was able to stop by the Apple Stores to check up on work email while the wife went shopping. At the Las Vegas store, I spent over 2 hours at the Apple store, checking mail, surfing and playing games...The staff never once bothered me. Knowing I was an avid Mac user but just enjoying the day at the store.
It must be a policy of the store...a way to welcome existing customers and letting potential new ones LEARN and try under an un pressured environment.
In July I went on a three week vacation and knew my email would build up to unmanageable proportions over that time. Since the middle stretch was in Indianapolis and there resides an Apple Store, upon arriving in the city (in my 24 foot RV) I headed for the mall. I parked obtrusively in the lot of this high-scale mall, left my dogs to "guard" it and went inside. I sat just outside the store and, as you wrote, my iBook immediately saw their network. Zoop ... emails downloaded effortlessly and I was able to surf my usual sites to check out the latest Apple (and other) news. Over a thousand posts in a few minutes ..... I knew it would work because I pre-tested the "system" at my home Apple Store in Michigan.
What was more amazing was how it worked when I left. We planned to head out to Lexington, Kentucky (no Apple Store) early on a Monday morning -- BEFORE the Indy mall opened. At 8 am I drove out and parked in the empty lot. There was a bench right outside the Apple Store. The stress here is on OUTSIDE ... right through sturdy brick/cement walls my iBook communicated with Apple's network and downloaded another week's worth of emails. Whoo hooo for Apple!
I enjoyed your article on the XP problems the Windows guy was having the Apple store. I can confirm that what windows XP people have to to change from their preferred network to a new one is indeed complicated. We have a conference room with a big plasma screen. I bought a WiJET wireless access box so that laptop users could project their desktops onto the screen. Since the room is used by various groups I wrote up two sets of "quick start" instructions, one for the Mac, the other for XP. The Mac instruction was two pages long and included screen shots of the Airport icon and drop down and two of the WiJET app, the same instructions for XP totaled five pages.
Great article. I often sit outside that Apple Store with my 12" PB (trying to keep my mind off what my wife is spending in Talbots!), and normally the guy from Brookstones comes over to say that the "internet thing" works in his store and I'm welcome to sit in their massaging chair while I use my laptop!! Strangely, I've never taken up his offer!
I think it's funny that Intel lists Apple Stores in its Intel Centrino Wireless Technology hotspot locator site. Your typical PC weenie probably concludes that Apple uses Centrino technology.
Also, I just tested the connection from my iBook to a Panera Bread restaurant... from the parking lot. Just turn Airport on, and it instantly detects the Panera network. The signal strength (again, from the parking lot) indicated full strength (radar indicator all black).
I have enjoyed reading your columns ever since I stumbled upon your website a few months ago. I hope you and your family are all doing alright after this terrible hurricane. Even in Maryland where I live, we still get slammed from time to time but nothing like what you Floridians deal with. I usually try to read your column in a few minutes while I am at work slaving away on a terrible Gateway running Win 2000. When I started at this job I was presented with the opportunity to replace this aging dinosaur with a new laptop, and I proposed a PowerBook. No dice: 'but, your apple wont work with anything we have in our office.'
You try and explain that that's not the case but at least I got an IBM, that has yet to arrive. Point being that I got some new furniture in the office today so my desk got moved across the room and I plugged my PeeCee in and what do you know, it doesn't work anymore so I had to wait to get home to check your site. Of all the stupid things, the keyboard no longer works and the mouse acts like it's on crack. After I stifled all the profanity towards Bill Gates, I explained my situation to the boss after I had called IT (to no response) and he said to me, 'well, IT will get to it as soon as they can, but what are you gonna do? That's just how computers are.' ARG. What kind of haze to these windows users walk around in? It's not like I'm a Mac-only user, I know a thing or two about Windows machines as one is inevitably forced to use one at work or at some other unfortunate time. It makes absolutely no sense that of all things the keyboard would cease to work! I'm becoming enraged again as I'm recalling this story. So I'll just imagine what the new iMac G5 will be like. It just doesn't make sense to use Windows, when you consider the fact that each time one of those bastard machines goes down it costs the company hundreds of dollars in lost productivity, and even more in highly paid IT workers. My college roommate recently began his grad studies at American U in DC and got a part time job at their computer help desk. I converted him to a Mac user, yeah I'll take the credit, he just bought a brand new PowerBook. He called me up the other day to recount that it took him two hours to configure a student's laptop for the school network. It took him less than five minutes with his powerbook. Enough said. Just some thoughts. Thanks for the great sites.
