Apple Store - page 28

How much do you love the Apple Store? Enough to drop $495,000 to buy an apartment right above one? Then boy, do we have the right real estate deal for you.

The Apple Watch is coming, and this means it’s time for Apple to put all the crappier fitness bands it’s been selling all these years into the airlock and flush them into deep space.

No surprise, then, that Apple’s retail stores are no longer selling the Jawbone UP and the Nike+ Fuelband.

One of the most difficult decisions you will need to make when choosing an Apple Watch is which case size to go for. But the Apple Store app for iPhone hopes to make the process easier by displaying both the 38mm and 42mm Watch cases at their actual size.

I haven’t been to a mall in ages, except to go to an Apple Store. Turns out I’m not alone. Apple Stores have replaced the department stores of yore as the main driver of mall traffic.

As expected, the Apple Online Store has gone down hours ahead of today’s special event. When it returns later today (likely shortly after the conclusion of Apple’s keynote), we expect to see new details about the Apple Watch, and whatever else Apple announces at today’s event.

Former Apple retail boss Ron Johnson is taking on a new mission: helping online retailer Nasty Gal move into the brick-and-mortar retail space.

According to Re/code, Johnson is leading a $16 million investment in the ultra-chic brand, which started out in 2006 as an eBay store, and has risen to bring in more than $100 million in annual revenue. Johnson will also be joining the company’s board of directors, while simultaneously acting as the CEO of his as-yet-unlaunched e-commerce startup, Enjoy.

It may sound like the definition of #firstworldproblems, but some residents of New York’s Upper East Side aren’t happy that they’re about to get a gorgeous new Apple Store on their doorstep, according to a petition.

In fact, they’re mad as hell — and they’re not gonna take it anymore!

Apple’s architectural firm, Foster + Partners, released pictures of the gorgeous new West Lake store in Hangzhou that was recently completed. The new Apple Store was covered by an incredible mural during construction, but the finished all-glass facade is even more stunning.

The firm says West Lake store was made in close collaboration between Apple and Foster + Partners’ engineers to create the perfect environment to view products. The end result is a 15-metre-high glazed box with a design that “combines an understanding of the local context with the philosophy of simplicity, beauty and technical innovation that characterises Apple’s products.”

Check out the store’s floating staircase below:

Apple opened its new store in San Jose, California, on Valentine’s Day, just a day after closing the nearby mini-store that was the last of its kind.

Located just minutes from the mini-store location, Apple Store Oakridge was unveiled at midnight, with employees removing the black plastic that covered the glass. The new retail venue opened at 10 a.m. on Valentine’s Day, with a queue of around 85 people gathering — all of whom received a gray, commemorative Apple T-shirt to mark the event.

We still don’t know the exact date the Apple Watch will ship, but a new rumor claims you won’t be able to pick one up at BestBuy, Walmart, or other non-Apple Stores at launch.

Apple plans to make its timepiece an Apple Store exclusive, according to German distribution sources who claim resellers will be shut out so Cupertino can suck up as much Apple Watch profits in the first year as possible.

While many of us will be celebrating Valentine’s Day this Saturday, for Apple it represents the end of an era.

At 10pm today, Apple will close its existing Oakridge retail store in San Jose, California — with a new, larger one set to open Saturday morning at 10am. In the process, Apple will have marked the end of its mini-store experiment, with the Oakridge venue being the last of its kind.

First launched in 2004, Apple’s mini-stores were an effort to quickly roll out new Apple Stores to keep up with demand at a time when the company was unable to find enough of the larger sites it was looking for. Nine mini-stores were opened in all — ranging in size from 2,000-square-feet down to a tiny 500-square foot.

It looks like we might be witnessing the end of an era. Apple is apparently taking down the iconic atom symbol signs from behind the Genius Bars of many of their Apple Stores, removing one of the most whimsical and fun branding elements from their retail presence.

In my experience, Apple Store employees are some of the hardest-working, most reasonable and (despite the fact they’re employed to sell you things) trustworthy people in retail. According to Manhattan district attorney, however, that description isn’t universal.

The DA is indicting four former Apple Store employees, plus a dental office receptionist, for an Apple-related scam that ultimately defrauded Barclays Bank of $700,000, using ill-gotten Apple gift cards.

Here’s how it happened.

Move over Xiaomi! While it’s easy to claim that China’s biggest smartphone upstart holds the crown for boldest Apple ripoff artist, Xiaomi has nothing on the Suwen University of Hong Kong.

If you haven’t heard of Suwen University, don’t worry: You’re not alone. It’s a fake, selling false diplomas and bachelor’s degrees online through China’s largest shopping website, the Alibaba-owned Taobao.

So what makes this a story about Apple? Well, take a look at the university’s impressive computer science lab, as it appeared in photos posted to the fictitious university’s Facebook page. For those unfamiliar with Hong Kong, it’s a photo of the city’s flagship Apple Store — albeit with a dodgy, Photoshopped logo to replace the instantly recognizable Apple one.

Apple still hasn’t opened an official store in the Middle East — and in Dubai that has allowed some otherwise past-it brands to not only eke out a modest existence but to thrive, complete with upmarket retail stores in shiny shopping malls.

Posted by Twitter user Mark McLaughlin during a sojourn in the UAE, the pictures portray a tranquil tech oasis as yet undisturbed by the disruptive forces of official Apple Stores. Like an island with no natural predators, that means that BlackBerry Stores, official Nokia outlets, and others can live together in non-threatened harmony.

But maybe not for much longer.

As China continues its march to become one of Apple’s most important markets, the country’s press have been given a special advance preview of the company’s forthcoming second Chongqing Apple Store, set to open at 10am local time this Saturday, January 31.

Not dissimilar to the concept behind Apple’s Fifth Avenue flagship store in New York, the new Chongqing Apple Store features a stunning glass structure emblazoned with the Apple logo, leading to an underground shopping area. In doing so, the store recycles the design Apple first created for its Pudong retail store in Shanghai.

Check out some some other beautiful inside images after the jump.

Given that Tim Cook thinks China will soon overtake the U.S. as Apple’s biggest market, it’s no surprise that Apple is taking its expansion into China seriously.

Amidst plans to open 25 new retail stores in the country by 2016, Apple has just released a new video showing a new mural outside its upcoming second Apple store in Chongqing, set to open at 10am local time on January 31.

The mural was created as a collaboration between international photographer and former engineer Navid Baraty (best known for these spectacular vertigo-inducing cityscapes) and artist Yangyang Pan.

Thermonuclear war may be over between Google and Apple, but that doesn’t mean that the two aren’t willing to score points against one another.

A few months after Tim Cook critiqued Google’s entire business model during his interview with Charlie Rose, and Google’s Eric Schmidt dismissed the bestselling iPhone 6 as a Samsung clone, Google has struck again with its latest act of aggression: a double billboard for Google Play positioned right next to a leading Apple Store.

Microsoft showed off a few neat concepts at yesterday’s Windows 10 conference. But while looking at the stage showed a company secure about its place in the tech world, turning around and facing the audience revealed a very different picture: a room full to bursting with MacBook-wielding journos.

Grasswire co-founder Austen Allred tweeted the above image taken at the event, adding the pithy understatement “A couple MacBooks at the Windows 10 Unveiling…”

If one were needed, it’s yet another reminder for longtime tech followers about just who won the PC war in the long run, despite Microsoft’s dominance during the 1990s. We can’t say we’re brokenhearted about it, either.

From gorgeous new architectural concepts, to its most ambitious retail store opening plan in years, Apple certainly isn’t slacking off when it comes to its continued expansion into China: a market that Tim Cook has said will one day be Apple’s largest of anywhere in the world, including the U.S.

Ahead of opening its latest brick-and-mortar retail store at West Lake in Hangzhou this Saturday, Apple has added a new video to its Chinese webpage — showing famous calligrapher Wang Dongling creating an astonishing mural for the store.

It’s a great nod to Chinese tradition, while also managing to be quintessentially Apple in spirit.

The Apple Store in downtown San Francisco got its own water fountain yesterday… sort of.

In the afternoon, a construction worker carrying out work on the the corner of Stockton and Ellis Streets, near to the Union Square brick-and-mortar store, accidentally burst a fire hydrant — resulting in a spectacular geyser of water erupting outside the Apple Store.

Although it didn’t last for long, the spectacle certainly made an impression on onlookers: one of whom filmed it using the slo-mo function on their iPhone.

When Apple comes up with an iconic design for an Apple Store, it often likes to replicate it elsewhere.

Just like the glass cube created for the company’s Fifth Avenue flagship store in New York has also popped up in other Apple Stores around the world, so too is the company reusing the glass cylinder entrance architecture design first created for its Pudong brick-and-mortar store in Shanghai.

The stunning 30-foot glass structure design will make a reappearance for Apple’s forthcoming Chongqing Apple Store, located in the city’s upmarket Guotai Plaza.

A new Apple online ad campaign called “Start Something New” has extended to Apple’s brick-and-mortar retail outlets — with the walls of Apple Stores being used to show off artwork created using Apple products.

Apple first launched the online campaign on its Japanese website, before extending it internationally. It shows off work in which “every brushstroke, every pixel, and every frame of film” was created by artistic Apple users, using software like the third-party photography and painting apps VSCO Cam and Waterlogue, along with better known tools such as iDraw and Final Cut Pro, and in-built features like the iPhone’s Panorama mode.

Real estate in New York? It just ain’t cheap. In fact, it’s so expensive that even if you have a successful business you might not be able to afford it.

Case in point? Look no further than Restoration Hardware. The American chain of home furnishings, hardware, and outdoor and garden products may be worth over a billion dollars in revenue as of 2012, but Steve Jobs once had to personally bail the company out.

Apple scooped up a couple architectural awards this week for the stunning engineering behind its magnificent Glass Lantern store at the Zorlu Center in Istanbul Turkey.  The judges said it ‘takes structural glass technology to a new dimension’, and even though we’ve never been inside the Zorlu store it’s not hard to see why it’s getting showered with awards after looking at these pictures.

The Zorlu Store is the first Apple Store created by the same architectural firm behind the new spaceship campus in Cupertino, and it looks like the same amount of attention to detail and minimalist thought that goes into the creation of an iPhone was also poured into the new award-winning Apple temple.

Take a tour of the exquisite store below: