Sadly, I thought I'd be here writing my first "good experience" at a phone store. ANY phone store. Over the last 25+ years, it's always been torture. (I was an early adopter.) There's always the pain of waiting and waiting until someone "helps" you and they begin to mislead you. I recently went in with my son and wife who honestly thought we would get 2 iPhones and a new line (for my kid) without denting our bill. I knew that was nonsense and quickly unraveled that when I went into the store. Anyways....back to our current story: I went in 2 days ago to trade in my old Samsung S7 for the latest greatest iPhone. It sickened me to spend that much, but, for various reasons (like I keep a phone for average of 6+ years), I went BACK into an iPhone. (My first smart phone was an iPhone.) As usual, I did wait, but I was quickly placed on a waiting list. And, within 15 minutes I had a sales guy. Super nice. Answered most of my questions about the change to an iPhone. "Yes. EVERYTHING will transfer!! All of the APPs. Everything. It will even appear on the phone laid out as it was on the Samsung." Well, that was my biggest concern. My "World" is controlled through my phone. It is the NEXUS of communications and controlled devices around my home. Of course, the small hiccup at that moment was, I was NOT AUTHORIZED to make changes on the account "in the store." My wife and I have been with Sprint/T-Mobile for over 20 years! But, She was the "main" person and needed to authorize me. Of course I couldn't reach her when I was at the store. BUTTT, I later authorized myself at home by simply going into my online account. WHY didn't the sales guy tell me (or know) that!? I didn't need my wife (who's very busy) to deal with this at all. Regardless, I returned to the store on day 2 and asked for my very nice sales guy. The $1300 purchase went smoothly. I was thinking: "Wow first decent experience ever. Of course, that was at the "buying a $1300 device stage. Now came time for the swift, easy, flawless transfer. "Come back in an hour." Okay, fine. I came back in 90 minutes. Now I'm dealing with the the first "tech." Tech: "Well, it's gonna take 4 hours." The store was now closing in less than an hour. I chose to leave it over night. 'came in the next morning for my swift, quick "pick up" of my new phone. Firstly, they opened the doors earlier than 10am (posted opening time) so several people "got in." Okay. But one might think they could easily ask "What do ya need" or I could get a word in edgewise to say "Hey, I'm just here to grab my phone." Eventually, the mgr, who was tied up helping someone figure out how to use face recognition, was made aware of my situation. Mgr: "Oh, that phone is still transferring." What? It's been over 14 hours. I said that I could have been told that 15 minutes earlier, but they ignored me. That all became superfluous anyways when a new/different tech came in late, then "helped me." Tech: "The transfer failed. You're transferring from an Anrdroid phone to an iPhone. It's problematic." (Thank God this is telecommunications and not teteportation!) So, now, I told him that the "speech he just gave" is in stark contrast to what the sales guy told me. "Oh, the transfers will be seamless/flawless" to "Good luck, you might get some of your contacts." WTF? I told him I feel like I'm now in NY when I asked to go to LA. So, at that point, everything unraveled. If you have actually read this far, your only take away might be: "You cannot easily transfer from Android to Apple or vice-versa.) After hemming and hawing, I asked just to please get my contacts transferred and my text messages. He went in the back room for 5 minutes, came back and said "Well, it transferred some of them. I can't tell if it missed some. Why don't you take a look?" Seriously. I have no idea who all of my contacts are. Regardless, I scrolled around, and my "current" top ten were in there...at least my wife and son made the finals. So now, swallowing the hard pill of knowing I would need to 'hand' download and install the dozens of APPs, I just wanted to know what steps I needed to "get started" on the phone. Is there a button to press to roll into all the major set-ups: face recog, iCloud, whatever.... I had seen that "request" earlier while opening the phone. Unfortunately, he did not know how to initiate that process. Then, I asked how/where do you set up my/the email so that the phone will get my email? OMG, the TECH did not know where to do that on the phone. After fumbling around through menu after menu, he did find the "point of entry," but now I figured I sadly knew more about HOW to set-up the POP/IMAP connection than he did. This SHOULD NOT be the case! I'm nearly 60. He's a tech working in the store. I specifically went to the store so that THEY could do all this stuff. 'should be easy for them. Not so. Had this been a pet store they would've been happy to sell me the puppy but sent me home with kitty litter for dog chow! :( read more