Apple Retail is changing the way that non-warranty support calls currently handled by certified Apple consultants are assigned, and that's making some members of the Apple Consultants Network (ACN) unhappy.
In the past, a consultant who had gone through Apple's rigorous certification process and paid the annual ACN program fees could be interviewed by local Apple Store managers to be added to a referral list. If an Apple customer had an issue that could not be handled in-store by the Genius Bar, the store would provide him or her with a random selection of business cards from local ACN members who were on the list, and the customer could set up an appointment with the ACN.
While this program worked well for many years, it apparently rubbed Apple Retail (the current organization behind the ACN program and the
