The purpose of this thread is for Digital Home members to review and relay their experience with the Apple Store in Canada.

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What product or service you purchased.
Approximate timeframe you ordered the product
What location you dealt with if it’s a company with many stores or service locations
Your overall level of satisfaction
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Good service but web site was errand sometimes (very so-so)

Over the last 3 years I have purchased 4 different Ipods: 20GB, 2 Shuffles and 2GB Nano. All of the products were received quicker than expected. What little support I needed from them was handled with courtesy and professionalism. I would highly recommend dealing with them and I plan to when I upgrade to a new 30GB.

Excellent website and superior delivery on hardware. They've used FedEx for the 3 computers and 2 iPods I've bought over the past 5 years.

They've used Purolator for software, like Microsoft Office for Mac, and iPhoto books, and Purolator is terrible. I've had orders sent back by Purolator twice because the driver would not look up my name on the panel of my apartment building! (So to ensure delivery I include my buzzer code as part of my address for all online merchants now.)

But in those cases a toll-free call without being on hold very long and Apple Store Canada quickly resolved the problem. Apple Store Canada is an excellent merchant in my opinion. If you access their website through yourshops.ca you will also be able to get Air Miles on your purchase.

I ordered an iPod and it arrived in about 3 days via FedEX. The Apple Store was really quick in processing the order and everything was fine upon arrival.

Ordered 3 items on Black Friday; Item 1 shipped same day by Fedex out of Hong Kong; Item 2 shipped by Purolator out of California; Item 3 (software - separate order, but same day) shipped out of Concord, ON by UPS.

Item 1 arrived Monday; Item 3 arrived Tuesday and Item 2 arrived Wednesday.

Near the end of last year I ordered 3 iMacs, 2 macbooks, and 4 ipod's. I received the entire order in about 1.5 weeks, which I thought was excellent shipping and handling times. Especially considering the size of the order.

Prices are same or cheaper than any other online retailer, (or in the case of computers and iPods, bricks and mortar retailers).

Astonishingly fast delivery when receiving computers because they use FedEx. Unfortunately rely on the usually appalling Purolator for software and non-computer items.

Made an appointment Thursday evening for 6:50 p.m. Friday at the Eaton's Centre store's Genius Bar to get my iPhone looked at (defective screen). Walked in at 6:45 p.m., checked in with the concierge, and was seen at 6:55 p.m. The tech checked the iPhone for damage, ran some diagnostics, and produced a replacement (even though the iPhone was six days out of warranty). When I expressed concern that the old iPhone still had all my data, he started the formatting process in front of me. We finished at 7:20 p.m. and I sped out of the store before I was tempted to replace my first generation Macbook with a current model :)

All in all, a very satisfactory experience.

I've bought 2 Imacs, ATV, Itouch from the website. Quick detailed shipping via UPS. THe Imac arrived 36 hours after ordering.

In March I purchased a refurbished 2010 13" Macbook Pro from Apple.ca. The price was roughly 2/3 of the new price and the unit came packaged like new and looked brand new. Got an Apple Airport Extreme also refurbished. Items were shipped in 3 business days. Saved about $600 after tax vs new.

I purchased the HDMI dongle and hooked it up to my AVR/plasma as a test for bitstream audio and 1080P video.

As mentioned above, UPS tracking worked (but it took a day or two in my case to show tracking information properly after pickup). There is no Apple.ca online retailer thread, so I assume it's OK to put here - seems like some of the previous posts were online.

Are we referring to the online store, the bricks and mortar store or both? I find the physical stores to be very good - my wife's iPhone4 had a problem - I made an appointment, was seen ontime and got a replacement in just a couple of minutes. The store (Fairveiw Mall on a Saturday) was an absolute zoo and was totally filled with people. They need to triple the number of stores in the GTA!

In March I purchased a refurbished 2010 13" Macbook Pro from Apple.ca. The price was roughly 2/3 of the new price and the unit came packaged like new and looked brand new. Got an Apple Airport Extreme also refurbished. Items were shipped in 3 business days. Saved about $600 after tax vs new.
I've also bought a few of their refurbished items and had the same experience - you couldn't tell them from new. In my opinion it's always more worth it to buy the refurbs from Apple instead of new unless you're getting a very new product that doesn't have any refurbs available yet.

The day before my trip from Ontario to Calgary and my iPad2 decided not to charge anymore. Quickly backed up to iCloud before the juice ran out. A hard reset killed the contact with my computer iTunes completely.

As soon as I arrived here in Calgary, I made an online appointment with the Apple Store in Market Mall in northwest Calgary for the same evening. I was welcomed by name and the Genius support person checked the charging port for damage and the charger and cord. In less than a minute he offered me a free replacement and by logging into Apple with the serial number, he had the history of purchase. The time consuming job of updating the software, reloading my settings and files from iCloud was done with slick efficiency and verified before wiping my old machine clean.

My first contact with Apple support at the Apple Store. I was 100% impressed.

I wrote about a recent experience on my blog
http://colossus.dsmynas.com/?p=159

My Apple store story goes like this...
I wanted to get an Iphone 3S but as a Rogers Employee I was prevented from getting one until the public had a chance. This was a few years ago. The 6 gig for 30 dollar promo was going to expire the day before I was allowed to buy the phone so I was told I could get the data plan and have it put on my account before I actually had the phone. Did that, then went to buy the phone at a Fido dealer the next day. Was told, sorry can't sell you the phone because you already have the data plan. This dealer was under instructions from his manager to only sell phone and plans together presumably to maximize commissions. Called fido and gave them the story. They said OK we will take the data plan off your account but you MUST ADD IT AGAIN WITHIN 24 HOURS or you will have to pay the DCF fee of several hundred dollars. Go back to the fido dealer but guess what? He is sold out and doesn't know any dealer that has iphones. Unless I can get a phone and plan that day I will have to pay that DCF. Head over to the apple store. They have stock. But they won't serve me today because they only sell Iphones by appointment. Next available appointment is tomorrow which is too late. I explain the situation and thankfully they relent. They ask a "Genius" currently on lunch if he could help. He agrees and it's clear sailing from there. So Apple comes to the rescue for this Rogers employee.

I was extremely impressed with my first experience with the Apple online store.

I ordered the new generation iPad on March 19th, and at the time was told that due to high demand, that the unit would not be shipped until April 9th, with delivery on or around April 17th. I was pleasantly surprised to get an email from Apple on March 24th to say that it was being shipped early. I received it today, March 29th, almost 3 weeks ahead of the original schedule. Well done, Apple!