When I go into a store like Apple and pay premium prices (example my new MBP w. Retina, & the 13" & 15" late 2011 MBP I owned/returned were all purchsed based on recommedations by store employees including one case the store manager and a corporate sales rep. was invloved (move from 15" to 13").
There is a training issue that Apple needs to address. The employees have just enough knowledge for their target audience, the person who doesnt know much about computer, wants to surf the web, sync with their iPhone, and manage their digigal media.
In this latest case with the remote (given only $20 but my time is valuable returning it to the store) this is the 3rd time I have been misinformed/misdirected to buy an Apple products that doesnt work after stating my needs to in-store employees and given assurance that this will meet my needs. To your point shldr2thewheel, they should have known about the IR issue and told me no it wouldn't work.
My point, we all pay premium prices for that service, knowledge, genious bar. etc. (not discounting they make sexy products) upwards of 25-30% increase conservatively in comparable PC/windowns based machine performance regardless of the form factor.
Steve Jobs vision for Apple was always "sell computers that work and are easy to use for the general public", I can cite a number of examples where their products have slipped over the last year plus.
My late model 2011 MBP 15" w/ dedicated AMD graphics card was terrible, thermals on that machine were awful, it was a engineering nightmare.
Again, I went into the store, bought the computer based on the recommendation of a sales employee explaining what I needed it to do, purchased a $2800 machine and it started locking up on me because the CPU was getting into the 110-120 degree Celcious range. Any CPU operating at those temps. ranges will die, (look at Intel website for their Sandy Bridge and now Ivy Bridge) in any machine. The computers are all self enclosed with very little heat dissipation or thermal dispersion. That is why PC builders (including myself historically) put liquid self contained cooling systems in their machines. Heat will kill your computer period.
Well I trusted the Aplle employees and paid for their "expertise" taking home that $2,800 laptop. After doing research like I would do on any PC build off-the-shelf (OEM) or built (like with parts from Newegg) contructed, I found over 120 pages of forum complaints/comments regarding this thermal lockup problem with last years 15" MBP. Notice they are not using AMD in this year and went to Nvidia, additionally have changed the venting and at least on the Retina display models i don't know about the other new MBP's.
The competition is catching up/on. Microsoft specifically, new phone, tablet, and windows 8 launching this year with everything tying together via the cload along with office moving to a monthly subscription model. They are learning from their mistakes, windows 8 is such a drastic change from previous releases they are giving it away for $35 if you have a valid XP, Vista, or Windows 7 liscense to get people incentived to change because the interface is an apple like knockoff with an app store and all and is so different from their previous OS releases.
Bottom line Apple, you are making historic profits...pick it up with regards to training your representatives in store and on the phone. I do apprecaite you standing behind your products (14 days is a little short) but the applecare plan on the new MBP 15" W/ RET. is essential because it isn't upgradable, RAM, SSD, battery, etc.
Sorry for the long winded response and I touched on number issues, perhaps someone from Apple's Sr. Leadership team will take notice but I doubt it.
