I was all wrong about the Genius Bar.

I was never quite sure what you would do there, but I imagined it had something to so with asking questions about shortcut keys or backup strategies or the right gardening software. Like a public library reference desk, but limited to question about Apple hardware and software.

I’n sure some of that is true, but today I learned that the Genius Bar can also diagnose – and possibly fix – your Mac.

Oliver’s mid-2012 MacBook Air developed a sound issue last week: no sound through the speakers, no sound through the headphone port, no sound input or output devices showing up in the settings.

Oliver was able to patiently hold on, silently, until our trip to Halifax today when we had an appointment at the Genius Bar at the Apple Store in Halifax (easy to make online).

We showed up at our appointed time, were ushered to the bar — it really is a bar — and our “genius” introduced himself. He was a Joey Jeremiah look alike and he knew why we were there from the form I filled out when I made the appointment, so he was primed and ready.

He had Oliver login to his Mac and shut it down, then plugged in a USB Ethernet adapter and booted up to a diagnostic tool that accurately deduced that it was a hardware issue. He excused himself for a moment, went into “the back,” and emerged 10 minutes later with a working computer: turns out that the cable that connects the sound system to the computer had become loose. He cautioned Oliver to try to avoid giving the upper-left corner of the computer — the section around the power socket — a knock to mitigate against this happened again.

We were in and out in 20 minutes. No charge.

The entire experience was handled quickly, professionally and with good humour.

So that’s what they do at the Genius Bar.