The greatest value in the Apple store is no more, at least not until 2009. One-to-One personal training, crazy cheap at $99 for up to 52 weekly sessions of 50 minutes, has been suspended until after the holidays. Apple sent a message advising everybody their one-year subscription to the service has been extended by one month. It’s a little secret, but Apple will even find trainers for you to learn Adobe products, not just the Apple software and basics like “how to clean up your desktop.”
Now, there’s no official shutdown of the training. But just try to get any class scheduled at all from the Concierge of your local store’s Web page. “Try again later.” Or, “Just come on in and buy something, already.” It’s okay; both Austin stores are cattle-cars of consumers by now, hipsters three deep shopping for the perfect iPod or laptop.
When you come back in January, maybe the din of the commerce will have worn off. One story from this fall at Softpedia reported that the aluminum and hard plastic dens of sales which are Apple’s stores make private lessons a challenge. Headsets for trainer and student solved the problem. So you can feel like a bomber crewman steering that new application.
Bites of Apple » 10 Ways Apple Owned This Decade
on Dec 30th, 2009
@ 8:06 pm:
[...] One to One has its own limits, too, such as scheduling: the Apple Concierge Web site won’t let you book more than one session in advance. But even if you only used 10 visits out of 52 weeks, this would be a $9.90 consult. You can even bring your own laptop to train, and so take away more than just learning. You can finish a production. [...]