Whenever a loyal customer of over a decade leave a store feeling disappointed at the technical support, it'll always leave a lingering bitter taste.
Four days ago, I stepped in to get an audio/battery issue checked out, but there was no walk in available so I scheduled an appointment for today at 10:20 in the morning with the Genius Bar.
The specialist ran a few diagnostic tests and said everything according to the tests was functional except for a software update. Nothing was done to address the issue of the audio quality sounding muffled and the only test was playing a sound on speaker in the loud open space when everyone is talking loudly nearby. At no point did we test the headphones that was malfunctioned nor was anything of substantial resolution provided.
After rebooting and waiting almost a full hour at this point, there was no solution to resolve the poor audio quality, and the specialist left to attend to other customers. Again, maybe it's just my phone, or maybe it's just Apple. Or maybe it was just the headphones - a simple replacement would have been appreciated but that was not the case. Next time, I'll just have to consider other phones when I'm looking to upgrade even though this is a brand new phone bought within the last few months.
Skip the store and spend your money elsewhere.