I think it's great that Apple have repairs available on the high street, but I have found that unless you are a complete dumbass and go along with everything they say it can be very hard to get what you want.

The most relevant example I can think of is when my Macbook battery died on me. It was a know problem with that model so I figured I'd nip down to my local store and get a swap out battery, a simple job I thought.

I had committed the almighty sin of not booking an appointment with a genius! I explained that this is a known problem with this model and I just need a replacement battery, I was told I need to book an appointment and come back, I said I'd buy a battery as I couldn't wait around, but was told I need to see a Genius to buy spares. I don't think me pointing out that it doesn't need a fecking Genius to see the battery is at fault.

They did go onto to replace the battery, about 3 hours later, I was with the Genius all of 5 minutes I think. But the process was totally ridiculous. They assumed I was a complete asshole, they might be right there but I found that in the Apple Store at least the customer is almost 100% not right in their eyes. It all smacks of a call centre process to me, they may as well read straight off prompt cards.

Having said that, I wouldn't expect them to stock every single part for every single model ever made, and as pointed out you can walk into an outlet selling any PC and expect service of any level at all.

I now have a MacPro with Applecare and would fully expect them to come to me for service on this if it ever needs it.

Cheers

Cris.