The iStore's quality and your experience really depend on the location.

Came in to purchase a new phone and was met with a lot of condescending tone and attitude by one of the employees who was attending to us. By the end I wanted the interaction done with so I handed him my card and paid then left immediately. Will aim to go to a different Apple store in the future.

Just to give more information: I have had better experiences at other stores, but I have also had worse. I travel a lot for work, and then I am a bit of a clutz, so my Apple Care comes in clutch at least once a year, but I pay for it. It seems that it is a 50/50 chance that I will have a good or bad experience depending on the store to which I go. It is weird. I will have a bad experience an hour out of Cape Town but then the best at a random iStore in some town in the middle of nowhere in Gauteng... it is a roll of the dice, I am tellin you!