How does Apple verify who I am at the Genius Bar appointment?

I don’t think they’re gonna put you thru the wringer.

At your appointed time, they call your name. You walk up. Done deal.

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Now, if part of your appointment was that you need to bring your equipment in for testing, well, that’s a different question.

Right, that’s how the appointment works, but I’m asking will they simply replace the cable without needing to see the iPhone?

Ultimately, it’s up to them to decide if they trust you. At most, I’d be surprised if they asked for more than picture ID.

Basically, they have on their books that “marmoset” has got a frayed cable needing replacing. Appointment time is set for today at x:00 xm. They call your name at that time. You say, “Here I am” and present frayed cable.

Pretty much, you’ve established your bona fides already by being in the right place at the right time with the right thing.

Curious, are you there now? Did you forget your iPhone?

Weirdly, I don’t think I’ve ever been asked for ID at the actual place. I’ve always booked in an appointment using the website – but when I’ve got there they’ve never check who I am. Maybe having provided an Apple ID is enough, rather than real-world ID?

@robmandu – want a fight?

benseven’s right—I have had a few appts in the past and they have never asked for an ID for me. They have just taken my laptop and looked at its serial, and put the serial in their system to see that it was registered to me.

My appt is for tomorrow and I’m asking for my planning—for practical reasons I just won’t have the iPhone with me at that point, UNLESS having it with me is the only way they’ll replace my cable. I would much prefer to not have to have it with me. So that’s why I’m trying to find out whether it’s essential that I have it.

I see. You’re clearly going on a nudey walk to the Apple store and have no pockets as such to carry the iPhone in, but the cable can be worn as a necklace. Might I suggest an armband?

Does anybody know?

Since no one seems to know for sure, I would say to bring it with you just in case or you could call the store and ask someone there.

Here’s an idea:

In the time it took to ask this question and read these answers, you could’ve called your local Apple Store and asked them directly.

I would bring it. Normally to do any actual work on a machine or swap out an iPhone/iPod they have to enter a serial number just to create a repair to order a part or do anything at all in the system.

They likely will not order a part for your USB cable though, if they choose to replace it they’ll probably just open a retail boxed USB cord, give it to you, put your broken one in the box and return it to Apple as defective. Saves both of you a ton of time and paperwork.

But, they may want to know that you didn’t just get a broken USB cable out of the trash and try to get a new one, so I would recommend bringing the phone just in case.

Thanks, StellarAirman. I’ve decided I will bring the serial number and not the phone. For other people’s info, I’ll report back on whether it worked without the device.

worked fine. FYI, the responses of the people who answer the phone at a given store are not always a good indicator of the responses of the Genius Bar people. Phone person probably would have told me to bring device (just like website told me to).

People that answer the phone are Mac Specialists, usually part-time sales people, they just do what they’re trained to do or what the Genii tell them to do in regards to service repairs. Genii never answer the phone, as they would never get anything else done if they started answering tech questions on the phone. I still don’t really understand why it was such an issue to bring your phone. Isn’t the point of it to have it with you wherever you go? Oh well, glad you got it taken care of. :)

(Really, nobody can imagine an improvement one might make to an iPhone, that would take a silly amount of time and labor to undo just to show a phone to somebody so they can replace your cable, then to redo when you got home? :))

Do you want a medal?

:) uhhh…? I’m explaining not crowing.

Everyone understands you’ve jailbroken your iPhone (and are scared of being held hostage by your local store when they find out). It’s just no-one cares!