Apple Store - page 36

We told you earlier this week that Apple is gearing up to open a new retail store in the famous Wangfujing shopping district. Not only will the new store be the largest of the 5 other Apple stores in China, but it will also be the largest Apple Store in all of Asia. 300 local employees will work at the flagship Wangfujing store and serve customers with two 360-degree Genius Bars and plenty of floor space.

Apple’s Wangfujing store opens at 9 A.M local time Saturday, October 20th. Lots of people have already gathered in the freezing Beijing weather for the grand opening.

The iPhone 5’s been on sale for three weeks now, and as is always the case with a device this popular, a long list of defects is already building up. There’s Maps, of course — though that’s not really exclusive to the iPhone 5 — the purple haze that sometimes appears in photos, and the black model is susceptible to chips and scratches.

And now some users are reporting that an odd green glow, described as “plasma bleed,” is plaguing the handset’s display.

The iPhone 5 is expected to launch in India on October 26, more than seven weeks after making its debut in the United States. The device is also expected to come with “wider availability” than previous models, which were hard to get hold of, and should come with a similar price to the iPhone 4S when that first launched in India.

If you think the iPhone 5 is hard to get hold of where you live, spare a thought for those in Hong Kong, where the device is in such short supply, users must play the “Apple Store lottery” to be in with any chance of getting their hands on one. According to one analyst, locals have more chance of winning the real lottery than picking up the Cupertino company’s latest smartphone the day after they order.

Microsoft is gearing up to launch Windows 8 really soon along with Windows 8 Phone and the Microsoft Surface to compete with the iPad. The Surface might even be released around the same times as Apple’s iPad Mini, which could make the tablet wars pretty interesting.

Getting a jump start on their Surface ad campaigns, Microsoft has littered urban areas with guerrilla Surface ads and the lastest ones have been placed near a highly trafficked Apple Store in the Lincoln Park area of Chicago.

Did you want to get an iPhone 5 on Friday, only to find out that they’d been sold out? Word is that Apple will start taking personal pickup orders starting at 10pm tonight. You’ll have another chance soon.

SAN FRANCISCO — This is Charlie Hufnagel, who was paid $1,500 to be first in line for the iPhone 5 at Apple’s flagship store here in the city.

Hufnagel was hired through TaskRabbit, an increasingly popular freelance odd-job company in this economy. He’s been camping out in front of the store for 94 hours (nearly 4 days) to snag a new iPhone for a “private investor.”

In fact, there are about 70 “TaskRabbits” in line here in San Francisco, who are being paid $55 to wait up to four hours for other people. A TaskRabbit rep estimated that one in four in line here are TaskRabbits.

Last year, iPhone 4S pre-orders sold out in 22 hours before shipping dates slipped to 2-3 weeks. This year iPhone 5 pre-orders sold out in 1 hour before shipping moved to 2-3 weeks. Apple is going to sell iPhone 5s faster, and in more volume, than they’ve ever sold anything.

If you didn’t manage to secure a pre-order in time and are facing the prospect of standing in line at the Apple Store to get an iPhone 5 on launch day, you’re probably wondering how early you need to wake up and get in line. There’s not a clear formula on how it all works, and only Apple knows for sure how much stock they have, but the experience of the last five iPhone launches have given us some important information.

The iPhone 5 is set to become Apple’s best-selling product ever released, and so we’re hardly surprised that just an hour after the company started accepting pre-orders, shipping estimates have already slipped. For those in the United States who haven’t yet pre-ordered, you can now expect a two-week delay before your iPhone 5 is dispatched, while some territories are now being quoted “2-3 weeks.”

I just got back from the friendly Apple Store at Barcelona Passeig de Gràcia, and I'm the proud owner of Spain's first set of EarPods. The Apple Store service was — as ever — spectacular, and the salesman, Manel, told me I had bought the first pair of EarPods sold in Spain. But how did he know?

Why is it that all Apple Store burglars have to have the intellectual capacity of a six year-old hyped up on Mountain Dew? Our latest Apple thief, Equonne R. Howard, decided it’d be a great idea to ram his BMW X-5 through the front glass of the Temecula Apple Store and steal a bunch of Apple products.

What Howard didn’t count on happening, was getting two flat tires in the process, and the drop gate for the store closing. He reversed full speed into the drop gate a couple times and eventually got out, but the dummy’s license plate fell off and he got caught when he went back later to retrieve it. Brilliant! Watch the video below to see his car crashing through the glass:

The Apple Store goes down for many reasons throughout any given month, and not all of them mean big updates, but the fact that it went down four and a half hours before Apple’s iPhone 5 announcement event pretty much guarantees we’re going to see sweeping changes and awesome new products when it goes back up, including the iPhone 5, the new iPod touch, new Lightning adapters, new Earpods, and maybe, just maybe, new iMacs and a 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro?

Who knows? What do you want to see in the Apple Store when it comes back up? Let us know in the comments.

On August 22, it became apparent that retailers across the United States were beginning to see shortages of 27-inch iMacs, sparking speculation that Apple’s popular all-in-one could be about to get a much-anticipated refresh. Now those tight supplies are affecting Apple’s own retail stores, which are quickly running out of both 27-inch iMac iterations.

I like the Apple Store as much as any Apple fan, but I wouldn’t want to live and work there.

You can’t say the same thing for David Wu, though. “Call me mad. Call me crazy. But I woke up one day around three months or more ago and decided to completely renovate my home study.”

So what’d he do? He made his home office a virtual recreation of an Apple Store, not only including a replica of Apple’s distinctive Fetzer Wooden Maple desks (with working drawers), a replica Apple Store sign with built-in, Apple TV-driven LED display and even a couple shelves full of boxed Apple products.

I’ll go ahead and call David Wu crazy. Here’s to the crazy ones. Read more about how he did it at his blog. More pictures of David’s sick set-up below, but make sure to go to Wu’s personal site for the rest.

Apple has reportedly started work on its first retail store in Belgium, which will be located in the city of Ghent in the Veldstraat shopping center. The store is expected to open in late 2012 — in time for the holiday season — or in early 2013.

Big glass walls? Check. Wood product tables with open layout? Check. Minimalist design? Check. Retail staff wearing blue t-shirts? Check. This isn’t an Apple Store, though; it’s the newest Samsung Experience store that just opened in Sydney where visitors can play with all the greatest smartphones, tablets, and laptops on the planet made by Samsung.

The store looks a lot like the inside of the Apple Store that’s just a short walk away, but Samsung swears they didn’t copy Apple this time, or even look at what Apple was doing in the retail space. Right!

It’s hard to believe, given how many Apple Stores are constantly opening their doors, but Apple’s only got official retail presence in 13 countries. That’s nothing: a mere 6% of the world. Chances are, then, that unless you live in America or Western Europe, you don’t have easy access to an Apple Store.

Luckily, that’s a problem Apple’s looking to change, one country at a time. Next country on the list set to be transformed by the Apple retail experience? Good old Mother Russia.

David Beckham is one of the greatest soccer players of all-time. I think. To be honest I’m not really sure, because I’m American and we don’t really watch “futbol” all that often, but I hear he’s great and I know he’s famous, so he’s gotta be good, right?

Not only is the dude super famous, he’s also super duper hot. Like, David Beckham is so stinking sexually attractive that silver statues of him in his glorious underwear are erected in his honor. And one just so happens to be outside the Apple Store on 5th Ave in NYC for some reason.

Here’s what the statue looks like from the front:

Every time you drop by your local Apple Store it’s probably crazy busy. Even when they haven’t launched a new product in months, the floors are always packed with people. Apple just opened its 374th and 375th retail stores this weekend in Canada.

While he was up in Canada, Jim Dalyrmple talked to Apple about the success of their retail operation and came away with some interesting statistics – like the fact that the genius bar services about 50,000 people a day, for over 18 million appointments a year.

The new iPhone will be released in September and already we’ve seen a couple carriers and retailers drop the price on the iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, and iPhone 3GS below the standard contract price.

Apple’s website is still selling at the standard prices, but according to some informers, Apple Store employees have now been authorized to price match discounts from other retail locations.

Since the beginning of the 2012 London Olympics last month, Apple has been giving away a rotating set of 4 Great Britain-themed lapel pins each day. This isn’t a new thing for Apple, as the company gave out similar Canadian-themed pins during the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

For the Olympics this year, the pins are tiny black and white iPhones and iPads. Cult of Mac reader Andrew Wingert sent in some shots of Apple’s full pin set.

The Geniuses at your local Apple Store are used to dealing with a wide assortment of complaints and problems. Broken harddrive, cracked iPhone screen, kidnapped woman? They can handle it all.

A few nights ago a kidnapped woman from Kentucky was forced to walk into an Apple store with her kidnapper who was trying to force her to purchase a bunch of Apple products with her credit cards. But thanks to an alert Apple Store employee, the woman was rescued and her kidnapper is now in the slammer.

Want a Retina MacBook Pro? Want to spend gobs more money on it? Apple has just expanded the build-to-order options for their most powerful notebook, allowing you to jack up the CPU to up to a 2.7GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 processor, or even upgrade the SSD to up to 768GB of flash. Now the most expensive Retina MacBook Pro you can buy is a whopping $3,749.00!

Update: We originally misunderstood the nature of these new build-to-order options. It is only the 2.3GHz Retina MacBook Pro that has recently gotten the option to upgrade to up to 768GB of flash storage; previously, Retina Display MacBook Pros with a faster processor were the only ones capable of being upgraded in this manner. We’re sorry about the confusion. Either way, it now looks like Apple has pulled these build-to-order options from their online store.

Source: Apple
Via: SlashGear

In 2012, there’s nothing that lends prestige, luxury and credibility to a shopping space like an Apple Store. From that perspective, it’s the Tiffany’s or Sak’s of the 21st Century.

In fact, it looks as if the Apple Store was considered to be such a prestigious draw that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority bent over backwards to make sure it could get Apple to lease a space in the famous Grand Central Terminal… at the expense of other applicants.

After months of construction work on the old Banco Espanol de Credito building on Passeig de Gracia, Apple has today taken the wraps off of its new flagship retail store in Barcelona, Spain. Cult of Mac has exclusive first pics from the scene.