Well, the rubber thingy on one of my iPod earbuds disintegrated, so I trundled down to the Apple store to see what could be done about it.
I walked right past the line of Appleniks waiting to buy the brand spanking new iPad 2 and showed the shredded thingy to a polite young man who said, “Yessir, we can take care of this” and disappeared into a back room.
I figured, Great – they can replace the thingy and I’ll be on my merry way.
Several minutes later a polite young woman handed me a new set of earbuds.
No wonder so many people love Apple.
Campaign Outsider 
Clever way to get you back in the store. I would rate iSteve’s customers very high on the scale when it comes to impulse buying.
Wonder how many walk in with a “repair” and walked out with paying iSteve and exorbitant price for the latest rip-off?
Since the earphones cost iSteve maybe 3 cents, the PR value of the giveaway could mean huge profits.
Just for the record, Mudge, I walked out with only the earbuds.
I walked into an Apple Store yesterday with my first-generation iPad because I couldn’t get it to update to the latest software (even though it worked perfectly fine). They couldn’t get it to update either, so they just handed me a brand new (first-generation) iPad as a replacement. Sure, a nice new iPad would’ve been even better, but considering mine was almost a year old, I thought that was decent of them.
A new iPad vs. new earbuds . . . your story is much better than mine.
I love a story like that! Doesn’t happen often enough.
Back in the late seventies, I purchesed a Super Eight camera, (with zoom lens) for an upcoming vacation trip to DisneyWorld in Florida. Installed the batteries and put it the bag.
Upon arriving at Disneyworld, took camera in hand, and…. nothing!
Looking to my right was a store that sold those cameras. The clerk took the camera, tried to operate it, still nothing. He immediately took it, removed the batteries which were ok, put them in a new camera, and said, “enjoy your visit.”
Still haven’t got over that.
Mulligan Stew
Excellent story, excellent clerk. Thanks, Jim.
Sir, nobody worships more fervently at the altar of iGod than me, but I gotta say, Apple’s earbuds suck. I believe that if you tried other earbuds or a set of in-ear ‘phones (the kind that goes in and the first time they come out they take out some wax buildup), I would love to help you pick out a pair that’s right for you.
If you’re in a spendin’ mood, nothing beats the best Ultimate Ears model, which will set you back almost two grand and which I would sell my pancreas for if anybody wanted to buy it. But you could have something by Sennheiser or Klipsch for a fraction of the price that would also sound warm and with a much wider sonic range.
The only problem with the in-ear ‘phones is it’s kind of disgusting to try them on before you buy them. But whatevz. Let me know what your budget is and I’ll send you a list of suggestions!!!!!
Or you could buy a pair of Ultimate Ears _and_ a pair of Sennheiser HD800s for indoor listening. Oh the things I will do when I’m a thousandaire.
Thanks, Arafat, but in these matters I’m pretty pedestrian, not to mention cheap.