Exemplary isn't the word that comes to mind at the moment.
Brought my iPhone 5 in to the Apple geniuses yesterday (Park Meadows Mall, south of Denver). I know, it was a weekend, so bad move, but I need the phone for work. Besides, it was during the Broncos game, so I thought the line might be shorter. I was wrong.
Phone would not charge when plugged in, and I already checked for dust buildup in the charging port (the problem last time). In fact, the phone wouldn't do anything when plugged in.
Waited on line to get signed up to get on line, wandered the mall until my appointment time, went back at the scheduled time, waited another 1/2 hour, a genius took some information, waited another 20 minutes, then a new genius took my phone in the back, said she looked at the battery (which was ok), and told me my phone has a hardware issue and need to be replaced, out of warranty, for $279. I have two months remaining on my Verizon contract, so no option there. I told her if my gently used iPhone can't last 2 years, I will be looking at other options. The one good suggestion I did receive is that I visit the Verizon kiosk in the mall to see if there is anything they can do regarding my contract.
The Verizon guy had the phone for less than 5 minutes and had it running again (hard reset, both buttons for 10 seconds). I told him he must be a "super-genius."
So now, with our sample size of two, 50% of us don't find Apple support exemplary.
FWIW, when I tried to reply to this thread on my iPad running Safari, the reply button would not work. Now I'm on a PC running Internet Explorer. Also, ever since IOS8, both my iPad and iPhone have been buggy. My iPhone crashed again after my visit to the Apple store, and went into the same black screen mode. I had to recover using the two button/ten second hard reset. I'm not an Apple hater (or a petulant child, for that matter), and I generally like Apple devices, which explains why I have several (iPhones, iPads, Mac Mini Server, etc.), but my trip to the Apple store coupled with trouble with IOS8 will be considered when it's time to upgrade in December.