I had an iPhone with a manufacturer defect--a common one--so I made an appointment at 7pm earlier this week. I got to the store, which was completely chaotic, went to the genius bar and tried to get the attention of someone. That took about 10 minutes. Once I did get the attention of one of the employees, they told me to go check in with another employee across the store. Sigh. So I go and check in with that employee, who tells me to go stand by a table so that someone else will be able to come find me and help. As I'm standing by the table, the store manager comes by and tells me the name of the genius who is going to help me. Of course, that genius winds up getting too busy with another customer, so some other dude comes over to "help" me. I have now been waiting for a half hour. I show him the problem with my phone. He asks me if my phone is more than a year old. I tell him I'm not sure. He looks up my serial number, and in 15 seconds determines that I am just shy of 2 months out of warranty. He then tells me to buy a new iPhone at full price. No discussion was held regarding the possibility of fixing my phone. No suggestions were made about the implications of device protection insurance. I walked out of the store fuming.
...and I went to the Verizon store across the street. They promptly informed me that my phone was covered under the insurance I had with them, and that they would happily send me a new iPhone at no cost right away. Problem solved. It's a cold day in Hell when you can get better service from Verizon than from Apple. Guess it's going to snow in Phoenix pretty soon.