Apple Nearly Created Retro-Future “Apple Cafes” in 1990s

Pete Mortensen ()

apple_cafe1

© Landmark Entertainment Group

For anyone whose history with Apple dates to their first iPod, it can be really hard to fathom just how different a company it was before Steve Jobs came back in December 1996 and fundamentally turned it around.

I haven’t found a better example recently than these renderings of a project that Apple actually announced in November 1996: a series of cybercafes worldwide offering video conferencing, web surfing, and delicious Appley food and beverage. All from the comfort of an environment that looks like something you might envision if you start snorting ’57 Chevys.

I repeat. Apple actually announced that they were doing this and held a press conference to unveil it, as this CNET article proves:

“The time is right,” said Satjiv Chahil, senior vice president of marketing for Apple, in a telephone interview. “Cybercafes are in. The technology finally is reaching out to ‘the rest of us.’ This will be a place to showcase our products in the real world.”

Can you imagine if this were Apple’s retail vision today? Of course not. They would be out of business if Steve hadn’t come back.

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About the author

Petemortensen

Pete Mortensen is a design strategist for consulting firm Jump Associates and the co-author of Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy, a book and blog that are significantly more interesting than you might initially think. Pete's particular Apple avocations are both around design--interface and industrial. Follow him on Twitter!

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Posted in Apple, Humor, Retail Stores |

  • yegorch

    It is indeed very funny now to look at those pictures, but I would not be that radical while criticizing this part of Apple’s past retail strategy. Look at any modern Apple Store, and you will find a much more simplified and sophisticated concept, but still similar to the Apple Café. Even their design is as futuristic today, as the Apple Café’s was in the 90′s. Isn’t the modern Apple Store the same entertainment complex an Apple Café would be?
    Thank you.

  • themacdweeb

    this is, honestly, not very different from the apple stores of today:

    + they provide free internet
    + they sell appley things
    + the joints are hip
    + and no, they don’t serve food. unless by “food” you mean “noticeably hot employees”, in which case, they CERTAINLY sell food.

    better architecture, same concept.

    TheMacDweeb
    http://twitter.com/themacdweeb
    http://themacdweeb.blogspot.com

  • scottdot

    I love the similarity of the concept’s neon Apple logo sign with the swoosh going around it to today’s Genius Bar logo.

  • Pete Mortensen

    That’s why this is so amazing — from a conceptual standpoint, these aren’t very different from the Apple Store. Look closer, and it’s gigantically different.

    1. The business models aren’t alike. This would make money from charging for Internet access and food, and maybe it makes people like Apple products more. (Probably not, though. Macs in 1996 were in a rough state). Apple Stores make money by selling Apple products.

    2. The design is absolutely nothing alike, and the experience wouldn’t be, either. This looks like a Hard Rock Cafe. The Apple Store is like going inside an iPod.

    3. This would have been sub-licensed to Landmark to execute. Apple Stores were created entirely in-house by Apple.

    I love this so much, because it shows the difference between an idea and its execution. Apple retail is a great idea, maybe the best marketing idea in the company’s history. Apple Cafes? One of the worst.

  • Church of Apple

    I’m gunna second the first few commenters; the Apple retail stores are absolutely in the same vein as these cafes. Namely, the point of both is to have a place that people want to hang out where they can become familiar with Apple products. It’s in the freakin quote in the post.

    Of course, this really shows how a good idea is never enough. The implimentation of it is absolutely critical.

  • joebob

    It was actually a great concept for the time, except it wasn’t the core business of Apple. It would have changed Apple from making and selling personal computer electronics to a video arcade for grown ups. Might have been a big success, but only until notebooks and home networking matured. Probably the next AOL.

    I think the Harvard Business Review lesson in this tidbit is that Jobs didn’t save Apple simply by creating better products. It’s arguable that even Sculley was selling better equipment back then. But what Jobs did was rebuild the core Apple business from the ground up: making and selling computers. Sculley was expected to leverage the Apple brand to generate sales, like he did with Pepsi. Ironically, it was Jobs who used the core strengths he rebuilt to do exactly that.

  • Snaggy

    Ha ha! That mock up reminds me of our Apple “fast tunes joint” comic…

    http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/301_999/786.html

  • CaryMG

    Of *course* Apple, Inc. would not exist if it weren’t for His comeback ….
    He should never’ve left.