For the first time in seven years of owning Apple products I couldn’t wait to get out of an Apple Store. This morning I stood in line for half an hour to pay for two Lightning cables at London’s White City store. There was a separate line for iPhones so that wasn’t the problem. A great deal of disgruntled muttering was coming from the queuers, unused as they are to such delays.
The store was busy, even for a Tuesday morning, but that isn’t unusual. For the first time since I first tried the Regent Street store in 2005 I had a distinct impression that the staff:customer ratio was wrong. It was extremely difficult to find anyone to talk to and it took me ten minutes to find a blue shirt able to answer a simple question about iPhone 5 cases.[1]
I now begin to wonder if we are seeing the unacceptable results of the new Browett regime at Apple Stores. I hope not because in seven years I have had nothing but good impressions.
by Mike Evans, 25 September 2012
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The answer was that there are no cases available and no news on when stock might arrive. Since phone companies and other retailers already hold stocks of new cases, it is surely unacceptable for Apple Stores to be both caseless and clueless. ↩