The other day we made our annual winter pilgrimage to the Trafford Centre - which was pretty successful and we got a good few things ticked off our lists. We did have one or two little ulterior motives including a quick visit to the new Apple Store. The big powerbook has been misbehaving yet again - this time its battery isn't charging up fully - and so after a short wait we hoisted it onto the genius bar where the geniuses asked all the right questions and came to the conclusion that the DC-In board was at fault and that they would send it to the depot to get it fixed. That was Wednesday - by Friday they (or rather their call handlers who sounded suspiciously Indian) phoned up to say it was ready for collection.

This is really a complete departure from our previous mac-service experiences in lovely Leigh which infamously resulted in a nasty dent. They knew what they were talking about and listened and clearly were very able to cope with people at all kinds of levels from the likes of ourselves right down to jewelry-laden hoodrich with problematic i-pods. We also picked up some spare powerbook feet and a copy of Myst 5. Apple has done a very good job with the whole store experience and it's great to have a proper mac shop within spitting distance.

Update: We went in to pick it up today, got it home and BOLLOCKS the screen has a fingernail-size gouge in it. That and the wireless networking has mysteriously disappeared which makes the machine a fat lot of use for it's normal sofa-side position. This computer must be jinxed.

Update to the update: The store of course made good and fixed the problem quite swiftly. Just in time for the release of the new MacBook....