Agreed. Don't know if it's like this everywhere, but the apple retail employees I've dealt with have all been creepy like this. The uncanny valley is a good analogy. It's like being sold stuff using mental judo by NLP robots. I occasionally also get the feeling when talking to them that I might suddenly wake up and realise that I've been having a dream about being trapped in an aspirational TV advert.

But I'm british so maybe the whole thing just clashes with our general mistrust of our brother man. We just can't really believe that anyone is actually being nice to us for no benefit to themselves.

It's true. They should act as if they don't like you and can't be bothered. Did you read that WSJ article where they unveiled that they aren't trying to directly sell to you? Oh, it's this one.