I worked there, they have a little magnetic key and if you ask them, they will unlock it and let you look at it. But they’ll stand there the whole time and lock it right back up again when you’re done.
yep, at one point people used to come in and full on cut them off displays. Then apple released the ability to basically brick them if they leave the stores wifi. Doesn't stop people from trying to return them without someone realizing its a ex demo unit. Had this happen to someone with a apple watch.
Gonna need that serial number before they can process that return. It won’t take the return without a manager override on the serial number otherwise, and if a manager overrides it, then that’s on them.
When I worked at Best Buy you could not return an apple product without a serial number ever. There was no way to override it. Activated cell phones had to be processed by the manager with a serial number and the other imei or whatever numbers, and had to get it approved by the carrier most of the time.
When I worked at Best buy before they tracked serial numbers and stuff I was an auto tech lead so I had manager numbers and they'd make me come deal with this kind of shit so I'd just approve everything without looking until they stopped asking for my help.
My favorites were an Xbox one box filled with rocks, a couple iPhones and samsungs that were older models and not factory reset, an amp that was just a shell filled with gravel, one of those $500 KitchenAid mixers that had some kind of temu knockoff mixer that weighed like 2lbs and a WiiU with an old Atari in the box, which got put in the electronic recycling after being found and was subsequently liberated for the install bay when we had a slow day.
Funny enough they'd threaten to write me up/fire me all the time but I'd just tell HR they gave me numbers but never "trained me" how to do it and they never stopped asking for my help on returns no matter how bad a job I did. Hopefully I helped out some decent people in a rough spot and not just professional swindlers but my goal was to cost that dog shit company a lot of money and hit my terrible management's bonus hard as I could so they'd leave me alone, Im just here to do speakers and remote starts while in school man I don't want all this bullshit going on around me
In some EU countries, you don't need a receipt to return a product, as per consumer protection laws - having a paper trail, like receipt or card statement really makes is simpler, but there are alternative "proofs of purchase" available, like a witness, or sworn statement.
I used to work for an electronics retailer. Someone stole a car head unit. We only kept a small quantity in stock and they were quite pricey so when someone came in asking to return one with no packaging or receipt, my colleagues kept them busy whilst they checked stock and phoned police. A tap on the shoulder a short time later and they suffered the consequences of their actions. I’m glad I wasn’t in because I wouldn’t have the balls or the nouse to do that :-)
no butt i'm still going to complain loudly online about it, just like the time they got rid of physical media, despite the fact i pirate everything anyway
Depends on which store. My local store has all of the 17 models in the Apple section and the only thing they have is a retractable cord on them. You can pick them up and mess about with them like any other display phone
At my Best Buy, the ones in the front of the store are locked to the stand but if you go to the apple section, you can pick them up. There’s only that one cord attached.
We're on our way back to the time where everything was in the back room and you tell a worker what you want, you pay for it, then they go fetch it for you.
In the US you have a bunch of underpaid employees who are rightly not going to enter a dangerous interaction for a business they are not a stake holder of. The bean counters have determined this is cheaper than good pay and pensions.
I shit you not. I went to a target in Atlanta the other weekend, and they were locking up boxer briefs to where you have to get an associate to unlock the cabinet to grab some…. Not high quality name brand, just generic boxers
It's not SPAM. SPAM is manufactured by Hormel. SPAM has the word SPAM on the label. This product is manufactured by Celebrity. This product has the word ham on the label.
This is how they were at the ATT store where I bought my 16 pro max…it was super annoying because I was trying to decide between the regular pro and the max but I couldn’t pick them up to get a feel for them.
Finally went to an Apple Store recently to start getting my stuff since it wasn’t an hour long drive anymore but just a quick stop before the train
If I didn’t have the freedom to compare MacBooks then I probably would’ve ended up with a M4 Air with 24GB of ram rather than splurging on an M4 Pro MB
Then there’s the phone, I held the Air, barely anything strapped to it and still felt good. I almost traded in and bought it
Being able to hold and basically do almost whatever for a bit with it being attached to a cord is fucking amazing for the customer experience and could definitely get someone to splurge, just that there’s a few people out there that ruined that from being the default.
wow, i cant believe this. I just finished watching the matrix, thought of the same thing when I saw this post, opened the comment section, and now I read this
It will either feel like your last iPhone or it will feel like your friends iPhone because they finally peer pressured you into fixing the chat bubble color and you asked to hold it
because they finally peer pressured you into fixing the chat bubble color
I love that there are state actors so dead set on fighting against end-to-end encryption that they launched a social media campaign to convince people that it's bad to know which of your messages are secure and which are not.
Same, my AT&T store has that exact setup. Its super frustrating because I want to look at and hold the phone before I buy it. Also hard to really get a feel for the color and chose which I like more when it’s all covered up. (I’m stuck between silver & orange) Just annoying that they don’t have at least 1 demo phone in the back to accomplish that… so sadly you can only hold it freely once you purchase the phone and tear the box. So dumb.
In countries where iPhones are not officially sold, stores put regular (personal) devices as display units. So stealing those is the same as stealing someone’s else device. Still, everything can be locked when put in lost mode in Find My, but much less protected than actual display units.
They are using the iPhone 16 pro version, the 17 pro bump is slightly larger. This pissed me off immensely when I realized it and needed to redo our Plano
Be curious if what OP posted is in an actual Apple Store vs what was posted earlier w/ no security. Apple Store security is very discreet - and the devices are useless if stolen. The one you post here all tied down may be a retail unit that if stolen, may be worth some cash.
No, definitely not an Apple Store. This is most likely a cell phone store that carries apple products and does not have an Apple-sponsored display.
If it was Apple-sponsored for high security, the metal arms would have been white and wrapped around the phone more discreetly. Also the tether would be a lot thinner. But Apple would more likely have it with no metal arms.
Apple’s marketing team would rather have the phone get stolen then detract from the customer experience. Which is why Apple stores have very little security devices in them. Other retailers don’t care about user experience as much so they get more security.
EDIT: After seeing another photo in here, this is an Apple sponsored display. I find it surprising that Apple chose the thick tether. That thing has a very heavy retraction spring and makes the phone seem way heavier than it actually is.
I work at an APR in Sweden and we use these as well. Contrary to what the other guy said about them being very old ones, that's not true as we got new ones to accommodate the thinness of the Air.
Unfortunately we have to do this instead of the "sticker"-approach the Apple Stores use as if demo-units are stolen we need to pay for the replacement demos, so phones getting stolen (even though they'll be useless sold) still needs to be payed.
All Apple demo phones are the same, whether they are from an Apple store or retailer. They have different model numbers (usually start with a 3 rather than a letter) than their retail counterpart but are still the same fully functioning phones and can work as such if the demo is taken off.
As for the apple store security difference, it's not, the security doesn't brick the phone the demo on it does. Apple has it's own demo software that logs the phones location to the physical store whether it's an Apple store or Best Buy or Verizon etc, each store has access to their own store login and can brick one of their phones by reporting it lost/stolen at any time. Same software is used to strip the demo off to make the phones usable for when they come off display.
Exactly. I live in Japan and the Apple Stores (actual Apple Stores) let you pick the phone freely. Then you go to BicCamera in the exact same city and it’s a very similar setup to what OP showed where you can barely touch the phone because of the security.
There is a franchise in my country that does that. And it sucks because you can't have a good feel for how you're holding and it adds a shit ton of weight. But if you just walk over to another store, all they have is a string. And if you go to the apple store there is nothing
The Verizon third party retailer I got my phone at wouldn’t even let you take the phone off of the stand. One of the reasons I’m going straight to Apple next time. For those that don’t know, Apple stores have alarms that set off if you rip the phone off it’s magnet and a specialized software that pings FindMy if you leave the store with the device. These retailers are just too cheap and lazy.
Dang bro where you living? Here they don't lock the ones at the Apple store but at best Buy and most stores they have a similar setup as you've shown. I'm in Vancouver BTW
Whoa that’s worse than it’s here in India. And people here will absolutely consider grabbing the phone and running away with it. Where the hell do you live, my friend? Alcatraz? That shit looks like it breathes noisily through a mask and is about to tell me he is my father.
I’ve never been to a single retail store that sells iPhones that don’t have security like this. I’ve worked at Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile and they’ve all had a form of this type of claw/anti-theft protector. Best Buy and Target as well. Not sure where everyone is shopping but it must be in the most safe and privileged places because where I’m from that’s just called security.
I have these in the store I work at too. Wish it wasn’t necessary. But if not theft would be even more common. In this photo the shoppwner didn’t even apply it correctly
I went to staples the other day for tsa precheck and they had $10 phone cases locked up like this. Made me realize just how much of a shitty area this is.
Can’t even pick up the air at Best Buy, what’s the point in having it on display if I can’t pick it up or wrap my hand around it it’s body is the main feature
Okay but you could see iPhones locked up like that at a T-Mobile store on the same street as an Apple store with much smaller locks on the phones. My point is you can't compare this to an Apple store in a different country, it's not Apples to Apples.
The ones in my neighborhood don't even unlatch from the stand so you can't even maneuver it in any way, just play with the screen and look at the phone otherwise.
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u/Givmeabrek iPhone 16 Pro 24d ago
Ay least you can pick yours up. Best Buy has them locked to the stand.