As Apple’s devices become increasingly popular, so do its retail stores. It’s almost impossible to walk into one and see a Genius without an appointment, and even with an appointment you can almost guarantee there will be a lengthy wait. But Apple hopes to improve this with a new Genius Bar layout that increases capacity from 7 to 12 customers, simply by turning a table 90° and adding a few extra stools.
Walk into you local Apple store today and you’ll notice the Genius Bar sits parallel with one of the walls (usually the back one), with Apple staff behind it and customers in front. Under Apple’s new system, however, the table is rotated 90° so that customers can sit either side of it. This provides room for 12 stools rather than the usual 7.
It also means that Geniuses have the room to deal with more than one customer at a time — while they wait for diagnostics tests or other processes to complete, for example.
But the new layout comes at a cost. Of course, by rotating the table like this, the Genius Bar takes up a lot more room. And according to ifoAppleStore, that meant the iconic kids seats and tables had to go in the retail store where Apple is testing the new layout. For larger stores, this may not be an issue.
ifoAppleStore also reports the the Cupertino company is currently planning to enlarge or move several of its early stores in an effort to increase their capacity and accommodate more visitors. They note, however, that this isn’t possible for every store, and that there is limited room for expansion inside malls.
The new Genius Bar layout is currently in testing and it’s unclear whether it will eventually rollout to other Apple stores.
Source: ifoAppleStore
Via: The Next Web