Last week my iMac Late 2013 started to have frequent beach ball syndrome. I noticed that starting apps were slower in general and Safari behaved sluggishly. I checked for console messages and found the dreaded:
disk0s2: I/O error
After much Disk Utility repair or first aid, the above error still come back at infrequent times. I went on Google and was already mentally positioning myself for a hard drive replacement. I then found the iMac (27-inch) 3TB Hard Drive Replacement Program. Lone and behold, my iMac was eligible! Talk about timing.
Brought the iMac to the genius bar yesterday morning and got it back the same day in early evening.
Restored my iMac with my latest Time Machine backup, and my iMac was back to its old self.
The experience was wonderful and all Apple related technology and customer support process worked like a charm.
We often compare Apple products with other products by comparing their features and benefits of the hardware, but I think their retail presence and their support is often an understated feature in itself and should not be underestimated.