I always buy mobile or macs at the apple store. Never ever from a carrier.

Apple store people are an extension of the Apple ethos representing their products and nowadays their services I suppose, when open due to the rotating pandemic.

Carriers on the other hand are in the tollgate business, they aren’t really selling hardware but upselling plans and other crap you may not need. It’s a little like buying a car, when you select a model then the salespeople go into high gear with all manner of add-on pitches or aftermarket crap that they know once you leave their store they will never see you ever again so they are going to do everything they can to load up the customer with extraneous or superfluous stuff.

No I’d much prefer the Apple store even if it’s a little like the dance of the 7 veils. It just works. The Apple online store comes in just under the brick and mortar stores but is still better than the Google online store.

In recent years I’ve switched to the android world for a number of reasons not exactly relevant here. But buying online in the Google store (if not the only logical place for their product line) feels like a transaction conversation with Arnie in terminator 1 or 2, I mean that’s the warm fuzzy vibe I get from the Google Online store.

Yeah, in my opinion never buy anything from a carrier in this country, there is such a better experience at a hardware manufacturers online or storefront. Anyway before c-19 and 2020 Apple pretty much had the best sales per square foot at their brick and mortar stores, even on par or better than Tiffany’s. There’s a reason for this financial fact, they f’ng know what they are doing in retail.