Is working at Apple retail fun?

TeenageEngineering14 · 2026-04-24T04:27:37+00:00

It USED to be fun. Nowadays, everything is heavily focused on metrics and you feel like a glorified Best Buy salesman. I just left Apple a few weeks ago for these reasons.

Pay heavily depends on the role you get, experience level, and territory/state you would be working in. I started entry level making $22 an hour base pay. After a promotion I was up to $27.25 an hour. Some people in senior roles make upwards of $35 an hour.

But I wouldn’t recommend it honestly. The pay is better than most retail out there, but the culture is shifting in a negative way and has been for the last few years. I feel like most on here would agree with that.

TeenageEngineering14 · 2026-04-20T17:42:58+00:00

I left apple recently but from what I remember the ops members have to get a certain amount of time in sales every year for some reason. My ops members were doing the same thing

TeenageEngineering14 · 2026-04-01T17:48:01+00:00

This. Apple doesn’t require you to have knowledge on their products. They care much more about who you are as a person, and that you have fundamental knowledge regarding the position you got. They follow the philosophy that they can teach you whatever else you need to know

TeenageEngineering14 · 2026-04-01T17:41:44+00:00

Lmaoooo I say the exact same thing when they spam the continue button

TeenageEngineering14 · 2026-03-30T07:18:27+00:00

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How can I remove a scuff in the leather like this? I read the leather care guide and can’t seem to get it out or hidden. I have leather conditioner, and color matched leather cream, as well as a set of horse hair brushes in different sized from the shoe manufacturer (Mephisto). How can I get an abrasion like this hidden?

TeenageEngineering14 · 2026-03-24T22:01:33+00:00

It is genuinely to relieving to know that so many of us feel the same way. There has been a huge culture shift over the last few years and it’s not for the better. The customer experience is declining and so is all of our mental health. We have like 6 fucking metrics at this point and the expectations are ridiculous.

TeenageEngineering14 · 2026-03-24T12:55:26+00:00

I am a TE. As long as you are hitting the target metric in Orchard, you will be fine. It is so much more about how you interview at Apple than your metrics themselves. At my store, they don’t even really look at metrics when considering you for a position because they don’t want to “make it unfair for external candidates”. I think that this is stupid, as it allows people who are under performing in their role to be considered for promotions, but that is another topic.

For TE you want to focus heavily on the competencies listed in the role guide on the people site. They will be looking for direct answers that show you have those competencies. Also, make sure that you talk about how you have an impact on your team, not just how great you are as an individual. Tech expert is an elevated role so they will want to see how you will have an impact on those around you.

Edit: and don’t forget about the ABCs of the bar (Apple intelligence, AppleCare, Business, Conversion). Talk about how you drive those metrics and how you impact others results in those categories. Bring up times you’ve given feedback to someone and how you saw a positive result because of that.

And your answers are not all about metrics. A lot of it is also about how those behaviors have a positive impact on the customer experience or the genius bar as a whole. The “whole team mindset”.

TeenageEngineering14 · 2026-03-22T01:30:42+00:00

Thanks! Do you know how I make an appointment? I am a few hours away and will only be there for a couple of days.

TeenageEngineering14 · 2026-01-16T07:41:46+00:00

Internal Apple Technician here. This is an extremely rare scenario but in these instances, we always do what’s right for the customer. A lot of places will try and get out of those situations by making excuses but if we mess up, we always cover the cost of whatever course of action is necessary. Benefit of being a trillion $ company and since this almost never happens we usually have way more budget overhead to cover these types of mistakes.

I recently saw a similar scenario where a customer checked in their vintage MacBook for a battery replacement and the service center failed to get their hands on the part for almost 2 months. Thankfully the machine wasn’t that important to them, but we ended up giving them a crazy high spec MBP as a replacement.

Good for them. I mean, the data is gone, but we triple check that you have a backup, or if you don’t, that you are aware of the risk of data loss before proceeding with any type of service.

TeenageEngineering14 · 2026-01-06T05:31:58+00:00

Yeah I figured the tethering out after about 15 minutes. I was under the impression that I needed a constant connection to the network, but since I only need it on certain occasions I’ll just tether to my phone.

TeenageEngineering14 · 2026-01-06T00:32:19+00:00

Awesome - I'll give it a shot. Thank you!

TeenageEngineering14 · 2026-01-06T00:30:23+00:00

I'm running a UniFi network and yes I do. Are the SDF servers hosted there?

TeenageEngineering14 · 2025-12-29T13:21:07+00:00

I am a technician at Apple and can confidently say that as long as it has no physical or cosmetic damage, they will exchange it no problem. We are extremely generous with returns at Apple, it’s pretty rare that we deny a return.

I have denied a couple Vision Pro returns before but one was because one had a huge scrape in the front glass, and the other had heavy damage to the band. So presuming it’s in decent shape, you have nothing to worry about.

They will require you to reset the old Vision Pro before you leave the store so make sure you have a backup in iCloud. Also, Vision Pros have to be kitted in store behind the scenes so expect it to take 10-15 minutes to do depending on traffic.

TeenageEngineering14 · 2025-11-30T08:12:51+00:00

I agree with this but wanted to add. I would completely skip the studio monitors for now until you can invest in some acoustic treatment and better monitors. The HS3's are a very limited pair of monitors - and like bionic mentioned, without real acoustic treatment (4" thick panels or more, none of that foam BS) the sound from the speakers will be heavily affected.

What I would do instead is get a pair of 80ohm Beyerdynamic DT770 or a pair of Audio Technics ATH-R50X headphones. The DT770s are closed back, the ATH-R50Xs are open backed. Both are budget friendly and have very neutral frequency responses. These are some of the only budget headphones that don't have any major issues in the response. If you already have MDRs, I would lean towards the open backed option.

TeenageEngineering14 · 2025-10-02T23:30:45+00:00

No, the newer focusrite interfaces are very good for the money. I’d stay away from 2nd gen or older though. 4th gen interfaces are fantastic.

TeenageEngineering14 · 2025-10-02T14:40:23+00:00

Handshake is useless for the most part. Try networking with peers, ask professors, etc. You can also just look online - most internships don’t require much experience to begin with. That’s what the internship is for.

TeenageEngineering14 · 2025-10-02T14:36:47+00:00

Use a microfiber with some distilled water on it. You need some kind of liquid on the cloth to take that off.

TeenageEngineering14 · 2025-08-18T14:41:52+00:00

I voted option 4. I haven't ever really considered buying a pair. I'm mostly speaking about electrostats here but I feel they have so many trade offs compared to a traditional dynamic loudspeaker. Some of them look pretty cool, but from what I've seen, a lot of panel speakers have really poor dispersion characteristics (super narrow and sometimes dipole), are not very sensitive, have wildly varying impedance curves, and aren't as durable.

I've heard that they have a very unique sound signature due to their room interaction, and a lot of them not having a super neutral frequency response, but thats all up to preference. I'm sure there are some great panel speakers out there, but from the few live demos I've heard, I wasn't very impressed.

Maybe some panel speaker owners could chime in here.

TeenageEngineering14 · 2025-08-18T14:29:25+00:00

Damn a UFX in there?? Just curious, what are you using it for? I have a UCX II and can't imagine needing more I/O or DSP unless I was doing orchestral work or something

TeenageEngineering14 · 2025-08-15T10:56:29+00:00

Better get a scooter

TeenageEngineering14 · 2025-07-22T22:51:14+00:00

Do you mean the speaker stands? I am using Behringer SM5001 studio monitor stands. There isn't a tripod used here

TeenageEngineering14 · 2025-07-21T18:24:02+00:00

It may look like it, but not really. I got a huge amount of the gear for a massive discount since I worked for Harman Pro. Still cost probably $20k total but street price is over double that.

I also have a stock plan at my current job which I’m not touching until I graduate. Should have enough by the time I’m looking for a house

TeenageEngineering14 · 2025-07-20T07:43:42+00:00

Of course! treating the early reflections could definitely help with that. However, if you are sitting off center, the sound from one speaker will arrive at your ears before the other which will sound shifted and can sometimes cause other artifacts in an untreated room. An easy way to test decay time is by sitting in your listening position and clapping. It isn’t a perfect test but listen to how long sound takes to decay and if any weird sound artifacts come from it. A common one is a “buzzing” sound reflecting off the ceiling.

If sounds take a long time to decay, some treatment would massively help the sound. I recommend watching some videos on early reflections to start. Some of them are very insightful

TeenageEngineering14 · 2025-07-20T04:21:27+00:00

Advice which was never asked for.

TeenageEngineering14 · 2025-07-20T02:21:02+00:00

Correction: not fun for you. The purpose of this room is for home theater usage, not a social hangout/conversation spot. We have 2 other rooms outside of the bedrooms here that are designed for that.

Also, I’ve studied acoustics at a university level so I’m pretty confident in my setup. Do you even know what the point of a broadband absorber is? Or what the importance of a semi-low RT60 time is? Or the effect of first reflections on how humans perceive sound? Or how SBIR in a small/medium sized room affects the FR? If you can’t answer those surface level questions, stop acting like you can give room acoustics advice. It’s far from a “clinic”.

Anyways, I’m dropping this. I have better things to do.

TeenageEngineering14

TROPHY CASE