The Apple Store on Fifth Avenue is one of the most iconic retail stores on the planet, but a leaky roof caused everything to go into disarray on Tuesday morning as water poured into the store.
A small leak sent water pouring into the west side of the store this morning around 8AM. The New York Post reports that Apple employees quickly went to work on removing the water, but there were only about 15 customers in the store at the time.
iPhone theft has become a hugeproblem. Mayor Bloomberg says if it weren’t for Apple’s shiny devices getting stolen so frequently, crime in NYC would have gone down slightly in 2012.
Despite the best efforts of the boys in blue, catching iPhone thieves is hard work. Police really haven’t gotten too much better at it, so they’re changing their target. To get iPhone thieves off the streets, cops in San Francisco are trying a new tactic: rather than waiting around on subways trying to catch thieves in the act of stealing iPhones, The Fuzz has started trapping the buyers of stolen iPhones.
Late last year, Cult of Mac reported that New York City’s crime rate had increased for the first time in twenty years, not due to the resurgence of criminal gangs like the Warriors and the Baseball Furies, but because the iPhone was just such a popular thing to steal.
Why are criminals so interested in ripping off iPhones, though, and not, say, Samsung Galaxy S III’s? What it all comes down to is two things. One, the predictability of the resale market: you can predict what you can pawn an iPhone for, but other gadgets are harder. Two: an iPhone or iPad is easy to identify at a glance, where as other lucrative gadgets are harder to spot.
LEGOs are one of the greatest toys ever invented. You can build pretty much anything you can dream of with them. Even a car. They’re amazing.
We’ve seen tons of Apple-inspired LEGO projects over the last couple of years, from LEGO Apple Store replicas, to a working LEGO Mac Pro. There is no limit to the creativity you can achieve with LEGOs, but these best LEGO projects we’ve ever seen:
You should never steal an iPhone while wearing pink shoes. It doesn’t sound like a piece of vital information, but in the hard streets of Brooklyn’s Prospect Park it is, because those pink little things are going to get you caught.
One thief learned that lesson the hard way, after he stole an iPhone from a girl, and then the iPhone he stole was stolen, and then both of them got busted. It’s a crazy story, but it goes something like this:
Apple is going to sell a holy-crap-ton of iPad minis at Apple Stores everywhere tomorrow, except in New York City. After getting ravaged by hurricane Sandy, NYC is still trying to recover from the damage the storm has inflicted on them, and many people won’t be able to make it to the Apple Store for the launch.
The damage from hurricane Sandy will probably mean that the iPad mini launch at the 5th Avenue Apple Store will be much more subdued than past launches.
The 5th Avenue Apple Store is one of New York City’s most iconic buildings. It’s also made out of glass. Really strong glass that will probably be able to survive hurricane Sandy’s damage, but the store is also located underground. To add more protection from flooding, Apple added sandbags to the entrance of the store just in case.
Hopefully they’ve added a few barriers below the entrance too, because hypothetically, if the glass facade of the Apple Store does come crashing down I’m betting it would be huge target for looters, especially if it were discovered that a huge stash of iPad minis are down there right now.
Thieves love iPhones and Apple products. But the theives in New York City? Those dudes have a fiery lustful passion for Apple products. So much so that Apple product theft now accounts for 14 percent of all crime in New York City according to the NYPD. Even though NYC’s crime rate only rose four percent this year compared to 2011, Apple product theft rose a whopping 40 percent.
If you missed this morning’s Education Event at the Guggenheim in New York City and our live blog coverage wasn’t good enough for you, Apple has posted up the full footage of the event over on their site. You can stream it here or download through iTunes here.
It was a fantastic event, but man, do I wish Steve could have been there.
iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 (Photo by jabella - http://flic.kr/p/8daW3f)
Psst. You wanna buy a stolen iPhone or iPad? New York City police say the iPhone is such in demand shop owners will buy the handset even when they know the device was stolen. The NYPD recently arrested 141 employees who purchased hot iPhones to sell at pawnshops, grocery stores and barbershops.
