Finding a seed of knowledge in the apple barrel
At the risk of offending a certain sector of the population, I’m going to vent. We’re home from a three hour shopping trip, that took us across the city in a snowstorm. After dealing with the staff of three different stores, I am sure of only one thing. Apple specialists are full of hubris and not much real knowledge.
The iPad 2 was available, today. As of 17h00, according to certain websites. And with magic plastic in the pocket, the nearest outlet was a Future Shop. There, we found four models left in stock by 17h35, and decided to plunge into the deep end of the pool. I will give credit to the clerk; he stayed with us until we were ready to leave, and he even arranged for the application of the screen protector. That alone gave him a gold star beside his name.
However, the goal is to use the pad in a classroom setting, which requires an external video adaptor. Never fear, it’s Friday. The new Apple store is open until 21h00. So we crossed town. It took time to find the place, but the store was every bit as white and expensive as elsewhere. Lots of lookers, some security guards and a gang of smiling youth in blue tees. The genius gender.
We asked five of them for the necessary adaptor and received five different answers. No product, though. The noise level was painful and the whole scene looked cheap (except for the tees). Disappointment.
Back to another Future Shop, where the clerks swarmed but provided little intelligence… except for one young man who actually knew his stuff. We found a VGA/Apple adaptor, got the order number for an alternative and headed home. If this is the Apple Way, then thank goodness the PC is still a standard.
