In an age when human help of any kind is hard to come by, the eight or nine Geniuses on duty at any given time here are a welcome anomaly.

In fact, go to any of the 102 Apple-owned retail stores in the world and - if you are willing to wait - you will be treated to what is an increasingly rare service: free face-to-face technical support.

The walk-up assistance has existed since the first Apple Store opened in 2001, in Washington. Over the years, as the concept gained momentum, the bars have become what Ron Johnson, Apple's senior vice president for retailing, calls the soul of the stores.

"It's the part of the store that people connect to emotionally more than any other," Mr. Johnson said.

For the first few years, there was general mayhem around the Genius Bars. Customers would stand four or five deep, broken gadgets in hand, waiting to speak to an expert. Now there is an online system for scheduling free, same-day appointments. And for $100 a year, customers can schedule appointments up to a week in advance with the expert of their choice.

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The stores in general and the Genius Bars in particular have been credited with creating a halo effect for Apple. The iPod owners who own PC's and go to the unrelentingly chic stores for an expert's help are often seduced by Apple's self-conscious hipness.

Paula Mauro, who lives in New York and recently spent several hours at the Genius Bar in the SoHo store, got that message when getting help with iPod-to-PC communication. As she sat at the bar with her 10-year-old son, William, who aspires to Macintosh ownership, it became evident to her that synching an iPod to a Macintosh computer is relatively seamless, while her three-year-old PC posed no end of technical challenges.

"The next computer I buy is going to be a Mac," she said.