Staff Writer - page 20

This is the Cult of Mac’s exclusive column written by an actual Apple retail store genius. Our genius must remain anonymous, but other than “Who are you, anyway?” ask anything you want about what goes on behind that slick store facade.  

Answers will be published first in Cult of Mac’s Magazine on Newsstand. Send your questions to with genius in the subject line.

With iPhone 5 warranties about to expire for early adopters, our Genius runs through the litany of legitimate issues you can use to get your iPhone replaced for free. We also dive into whether it’s better to be upfront about water damage and switching colors when the Genius Bar replaces your device.

1. My iPhone 5 warranty is about to expire.  How can I get my device replaced for free so I have a new iPhone from the warranty of the old one?

Like any piece of advanced tech, the iPhone certainly has its faults and manufacturing defects, even if they are somewhat rare.

Hardware defects are the easiest way to go

One of the biggest problems we have to swap iPhones for is the sleep/wake button. That button often gives out or gets jammed and becomes unresponsive. If that happens we swap the device. Same thing for the volume buttons. The home button isn’t as common a replacement. We may be able to do a modular repair to replace the flex assembly that goes to your home button. Often times that fixes it, but if it doesn’t we’ll swap it out.

Essentially, hardware defects are the easiest way to go. Camera defects come up frequently too, with issues like spots or lines on the sensor and shutter fails being the most common issue. We don’t have a camera replacement for the iPhone 5, so if you have any of those issues, definitely bring it in. There have also been issues with the iPhone 5’s metal enclosure getting bent out shape. As long as the screen isn’t cracked and the bend or morphing is noticeable, your warranty covers that as well.

Getting an iPhone replaced under warranty for a software issue is a bit trickier. Most software issues that people see will not lead to an iPhone replacement. Before you come to the Genius Bar you’ll be reminded to try rebooting your iPhone and restore from a backup. Those two quick steps usually do fix most software issues. Some software issues – like maybe your WiFi has gone out – can get you a replacement iPhone as long as the Genius can observe and verify the issue.

The good thing about taking your iPhone 5 in for those issues:  it won’t cost you anything and extends your warranty for another 90 days. After two replacements we have to ask a manager for permission to replace an iPhone, even if it’s a legitimate reason. Most of the time managers are cool and will just tell us to go ahead and swap it, but the two-replacement policy is supposed to act as a safeguard from people who try to milk Apple for an infinite number of replacement iPhones.

2. Why won’t the Genius Bar let me change the color of my iPhone when I get it replaced under AppleCare+?

Essentially, we don’t allow it in order to benefit our customers and make sure that inventory flows through the channels in the most efficient way possible.

When you buy a black iPhone, Apple keeps track of how many models it has sold in each color and plans out how many it will need to supply for replacements at the Apple Store. It’s a complicated process to get all the Apple Stores stocked with the right amount of iPhones in the various configurations, even though Apple makes it look easy.

Allowing customers to change colors at random would add an extra element of variation to Apple’s supply chain and could result in supply shortages. And then customers who actually need a device swap in their original color would get screwed over. So, sorry, you’re stuck with your original color choice. Choose wisely.

3. My 30-day-old MacBook Pro had a little accident involving water on the ride home. The screen isn’t working, but it will output video to an external monitor. What’s my best bet when approaching the Genius Bar – pretending I don’t know what happened, or fessing up?

Honesty is the best policy right? The Apple Geniuses are going to find out one way or another that your MacBook is water damaged. It’s better for them to find out from you right away, so fess up to it, but ask them what the best options are.

The Genius Bar is there to fix your computer, but it’s really about fixing your relationship with Apple

Ask them what was damaged and what repairs can be done. Sometimes – especially in your case where you purchased it very recently – they may be able to talk to a manager to help you out, so it’s good start off on the right foot.

The Genius Bar is there to fix your computer, but it’s really about fixing your relationship with Apple. Because the company wants to represent itself well and get great customer satisfaction scores, a manager might give you a break and only make you pay a partial amount of the repair, or even hook you up with a free repair.

If you are one of those people who have an iPhone or iPod for your telephony and music needs while out the house but still stubbornly keep a Windows desktop comp at home, perhaps for historical reasons or work purposes, you will most likely be missing out on a pile of great and super-convenient auto-syncing / streaming compatibilities of all your files, pics, videos, and so on that are the joy of Mac fans who use all Apple products.

Now, Korean tech company ConversDigital launches a new updated version of mconnect player free, which allows users to access media services and digital content anywhere, with any device, and “make connected digital media ubiquitous.”

This is the very first column for Cult of Mac written by an actual Apple retail store genius. Our genius must remain anonymous, but other than “Who are you, anyway?” ask anything you want about what goes on behind that slick store facade.  

Answers will be published first in Cult of Mac’s Magazine on Newsstand. Send your questions to [email protected] with “genius” in the subject line.

To start this off, we asked the Genius, “What are the top 3 questions you get asked at work at the Apple Store?”

Here they are:

1. When is the new iPhone/iPad/Mac coming out?

We’re not allowed to divulge anything about upcoming products, or address rumors. If we even talk about rumors with customers we could lose our jobs. When a customer asks if I know when a new product is coming out, my response is simply, “We don’t know when it’s coming out. We find out when everyone else does, when it’s announced.”

But don’t you really know?

No. We all read the same rumors as you do, but Apple’s not going to tell employees at the Apple Store when stuff is coming out because how many of us would leak it? We would instantly tell our friends and ruin Apple’s marketing plans, so they won’t tell us until the day Apple announces it publicly.

2. Do I have to make an appointment? Can’t I just come in?

Company policy is that yes, we can accept walk-in appointments. But truly, can we? Not always. Some days we have a full day of open reservations for customers to fill in as scheduling allows. Other days you might have to come back a couple hours later for an open reservation.

The Genius Bar is a lot like a car dealership service center. You can’t just drive up to Toyota and ask for your Camry to be serviced without an appointment. Most of the time you need an appointment for those things because there’s a limited number of technicians.

Bottom line, the easiest way to get into the Apple Store Genius Bar is to make an appointment. Go onto the website or use the Apple Store app and you can get seen right away instead of waiting for hours if you just come by.

3. Am I really getting a NEW iPhone when I pay $49 for Apple to replace a broken iPhone covered by AppleCare+? 

My line is that, yes, it is a new iPhone, but Apple terms and conditions state that “Apple may use parts or products that are new or equivalent to new in reliability and performance,” meaning the iPhone you’re getting is really “reconditioned,” not straight from the factory like it is when you buy a brand new iPhone.

We’re told to say that they aren’t “refurbished” because they’ve been totally gutted down to the frame. Apple’s stance is that they really are brand new devices, in the sense that they get a new enclosure, display, and innards, but there are a lot of parts that have been recycled from old iPhones, like the metal frame and some other parts.

We know they’re just rebuilding them. I’ve seen some that had a screw missing, others with a bad display, but it’s only been a small percentage. I’ve seen reconditioned iPhones that lasted twice as long as a new iPhone, so they’re not necessarily worse.

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This post is brought to you by Wondershare Software, creator of PowerCam.

There are so many times when I wanted to zoom my iPhone camera on some distant object, play with the focus, take full panoramic shots, and most of all, snap myself from a greater distance than my arm’s length! But I couldn’t. The iPhone camera, despite all the tech loaded into the rest of the device, is little more advanced than a pinhole camera made from an Oxo box. But now, PowerCam is a new app that allows you to turn your humble iPhone camera into a much more versatile device….

This post is brought to you by SquidMelon, creator of Stretch.

Most of us who work on a computer sit still for up to eight hours a day AND spend half our evenings on the Mac at home. That’s a lot of sitting around doing nothing physical. Stretch by Korean creative developer SquidMelon is a new app that knows when to remind you to take a break and shows you what stretches you should do. Watch the video here….

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We are constantly reading and watching news reports about other people in the newspapers and on TV. Well that may be interesting, but unless you happen to be a celebrity, politician, newscaster (or bankrobber), there is one person usually missing on the daily news: You. Mylifepaper is a new iPhone / iPad / iPod touch app devoted on every page to reporting news about you. Here is the news….

Do you enjoy problem-solving games on iOS whereby the only thing you think you understand as you get started playing is that tapping objects on your touchscreen does something? Splatz is one of those games. Despite its deceptively simple graphics and fairground music soundtrack, Splatz is really absorbing and taxes your memory. Patterns start to emerge….

Crafting great looking, professional documents in iWork or Office can be really tricky, even if you spend a ton of time on the computer. To make things easier, the guys Made for Use created some incredible professional templates for both Office and iWork that make it easier for users to look like a Pages-guru.

We’ve grabbed about Made for Use’s iOS Templates app in the past, but now the team is bringing all the greatness to the Mac with Templates for iWork Pro, and Templates for Office Pro. Both packs offer over hundred of templates for their respective suite of apps. And if you specialize in only one app, you can pick up the Templates Pro Pack for PowerPoint, Word, Excel, Keynote, Numbers and Pages individually.

Templates for iWork and Office Pro are two of the easiest ways to make high quality, professional looking documents, without having to take some college course on Office apps.

To celebrate the launch of Templates for iWork Pro and Templates for Office Pro, Made for Use  is giving away 40 FREE CODES to some lucky Cult of Mac readers. Entering the contest only takes a second, but you gotta play to win.

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This post is brought to you by Clickberry, creator of Tagger.

“Every video has something worth tagging” is the motto of iOS video software developer Clickberry. And their new free ($0.00) app Tagger does just that. You play your video, tap objects to add tags, then simply upload to Facebook or e-mail to your loved ones.

Watch the demonstration video here….

This post is brought to you by Detox My Mac.

Prudent Mac users often “clean” their machines to keep them running in tip-top shape. Those in the know repair permissions with Disk Utility, empty caches, delete unused applications and transfer large media files onto external drives on a regular basis so as to clear up space and optimize running speeds. But while all these actions are sensible routine maintenance, they probably won’t make much difference to a heavily used machine running loads of applications whose performance becomes noticeably compromised. Such systems don’t need just a clean but a detox. Detox My Mac selects, scans and deep-cleans your Mac’s system for a thorough detox.

Detox My Mac does not simply offer what the regular OS X disk utilities do but much, much more.

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You can get so accustomed to swiping to unlock your iPhone and iPad, that by comparison, clicking to awaken your dozing MacBook seems so… unceremonious. Now SquidMelon brings password-protected “Swipe to Unlock” to the Mac with a new app, Lock Screen Plus.

This post is brought to you by Inervit, creator of Dr. Smith’s Music Factory.

What mood are you in? Do you feel like capturing your mood or situation in a song? Dr. Smith’s Music Factory allows you to record your moods forever in musical pieces which you can share with people everywhere. Whether you feel like Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands or Shiny Happy People, Dr. Smith shares your moody blues or good vibrations All Round The World!

By Andy Patrizio

ANAHEIM, Calif. – Rising from the ashes of XO Wave, a digital audio workstation for editing music WAV files, comes Xonami, a real-time Internet-based audio editing tool that allows two or more people to work on a music file from different locations while keeping their changes up to date.

As one person makes changes, they are rolled into the work of others. As changes come in, you see them updated on the screen. The connection between the users is secured and files are stored in the cloud. Producers or mixers can either work on existing sound files or they can capture a live recording and work on it in real time, and no one has to be in the same room.

Xonami is still in beta test but users can sign up with a mailing list to keep up to date.

By Andy Patrizio

Rhythmic parts of songs are often programmed, but this takes it to a whole other level. WaveDNA’s Liquid Loops lets you program your beats and rhythms at what has to be the most insane fine grain detail ever seen.

Liquid Loops is an intelligent synthesizer and drum machine that let you build beats as a group, such as four or eight bars at a time. The beats are built with every possible combination of notes and rests possible in a measure, such as the 64 possible configurations of eighth notes in a single 4/4 measure. You choose from a wheel that shows the beats and rests so you can customize the beats any way you want them.

It sorta takes the life out of a drum beat, killing the groove a human provides, but that’s been the knock on drum machines from the get go. A free trial version of the Mac OS X product is available now.

By Andy Patrizio

ANAHEIM, Calif. – Jammit has been here at the NAMM show before, showing off its educational app to teach people how to play the guitar, bass, drum and vocal tracks of popular songs.

What’s new this year is the company has teamed with Line 6, makers of effect-laden amplifiers, to give iOS devices a genuine guitar sound. So if you are playing along to Nirvana or Sublime or Rush, the Line 6 connector will make you sound like those songs, and you don’t have to worry about fiddling with your guitar to get Kurt Cobain or Alex Lifeson’s unique tone.

Jammit lets you play along to your favorite songs, removing the instrument you are playing so you don’t have to play over it. You can isolate the parts, loop them to learn them, and even record yourself playing with the band. The app is free on the App Store, but songs, licensed from the artists, cost $2.99 and up. The Jammit song store has more than 1,200 titles.

By Andy Patrizio

ANAHEIM, Calif. – IK Multimedia has a number of Apple devices for musicians and is expanding some of them to other iOS devices. One example is iRig HD for iPad, a high definition audio recorder that makes quality recordings of vocals or acoustic audio.

iRig HD does a 24-bit A/D conversion for a signal free of background noise or crosstalk. An onboard gain control allows you to find the idea distance for the microphone to get the cleanest recording at the best audio levels.

iRig is already available for iPhone, iPod Touch and Mac. Pricing for the HD model is not available yet.

By Andy Patrizio

Every creative person knows that inspiration can come at inopportune moments. So what if you don’t have an instrument or sheet music handy when a great song pops into your head?

NoteFlight is a service that will give you access to sheet music any time and on any device. Company reps say they aim to be “the Google Docs of sheet music” in that regard.

By Andy Patrizio

At some point or another you’ve probably seen a musician take their hands off their instrument and quickly flip a page during a live performance. Woe to them if they knock a page down off the stand.

The AirTurn BT-105 eliminates that problem by incorporating four programmable pedals that work with any iPad-based sheet music application to scroll the sheet music down so you never have to take your hands off your horn, axe or violin.

By Andy Patrizio

ANAHEIM, Calif. — Agile Partners has a number of Mac and iPad apps but not all of them were on all platforms. Here at the NAMM show, it closed that hole a little with the introduction of AmpKit for the Mac.

AmpKit was an iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch app that let you connect your guitar through an adapter and it would give the effects and sound quality of various guitar pedals and amplifiers. This allows a guitarist to experiment with different sound pedals and types of amps, since they all have different tones, to find the combination they want.

AmpKit uses two-stage amp modeling, convolution-based cabs and positional mics for the most realistic tone possible on both clean and high-gain settings. It runs in the background so you can play along to other apps, whether it’s a sheet music app or iTunes.

AmpKit is a free download, which comes with the basic configuration of amps and pedals. If you want to increase the library, it will cost you.

By Andy Patrizio

One of the first industries to adopt the iPad was the airline industry, because pilots were able to trade their 50 pounds of flight manuals for one iPad that held everything and was rapidly searchable. Musicians are following on that notion, trading in paper sheet music for a 9.7” iPad screen.

Chromatik introduced its eponymous iPad sheet music app that doesn’t just display music, it lets you highlight it, annotate it, make changes and record your own changes. Everything is stored in the cloud, so it can sync with a number of other devices.

By Andy Patrizio

ANAHEIM, Calif. — Guitarists have long had the option of a wallet-sized amp with a headphone plug, so they can plug in their guitar and no one else hears them play. But what if you are stuck on a six-hour plane ride? You can’t take a nail clipper on the plane these days, let alone a guitar.

Well, if the TSA doesn’t confiscate your iPad, yo uczn use MoForte’s Power Chord, an app that turns your tablet into a guitar. All you need to do is strum the screen. You can strum or pick strings, adjust the effects and even shake your iPad like using a whammy bar to channel your inner Hendrix. You can even do string scraping, where you simulate the effect of running a guitar pick down the string for that descending screech sound.

By Andy Patrizio

ANAHEIM, Calif. – If it’s late January in Anaheim, that means one thing: the North American Music Merchant’s (NAMM) convention turning the area around Disneyland into an even bigger madhouse. NAMM is for musicians what CES is for consumer electronics junkies; just a lot more hair and tattoos. More than 90,000 people will descend on this modestly-sized convention center best suited to hold about 10,000 max.

NAMM has run continuously since 1901, making it one of the oldest trade shows in the country. For the last 35 years it has come to Anaheim and has clearly outgrown the modest convention center, but NAMM is reluctant to leave.

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