Following reports Apple is set to introduce a new self-checkout system in its retail stores using its Apple Store app for iOS, the Cupertino company has begun preparing stores with EasyPay signs that inform customers they can pay for certain products by themselves.
Apple revolutionized retail shopping when it opened up its first brick and mortar store back in 2001, and it’s about to do it all over again — using an iOS app. The Cupertino company will reportedly issue a major update to its Apple Store app for iOS devices this Thursday that will change the way you buy Apple products forever.
UPDATE: Apple just sent us a statement saying Cano has not been named head of retail. A spokeswoman said: “The search is underway with lots of interest and we are carefully selecting Ron’s successor. We have nothing to announce today.”
Although an official announcement has yet to be made, Cult of Mac has learned that Apple has already replaced its outgoing head of retail, Ron Johnson.
Reports on Monday suggested Apple hasn’t found a replacement for Johnson, its highly-regarded Senior Vice President of Retail. But we’ve been told by a source that Apple has already promoted an internal candidate to Johnson’s job.
Apple’s new retail boss isn’t just some suit, though. He’s one of the first retail employees Apple ever hired, a California surfer dude who has climbed from the sales floor to the very top rung of Apple management.
It’s a real rags-to-riches story that should be inspiration to every stressed out Apple Store sales associate or overworked Genius: your work can be noticed, and you too can go to the very top.
Apple has closed its original SoHo location in New York City to perform some renovations. The SoHo store on Prince Street is closed for a limited time, and Apple has opened a temporary store on Greene Street.
Described as “raw and “rustic,” Apple’s temporary SoHo store is bustling with activity and features all the aspects that customers would expect from an Apple Store. Apple sure knows how to throw a store together.
Apple’s Senior Vice President of Retail Operations, Ron Johnson, has officially left the Cupertino company to become CEO of JC Penney. His biography was removed from Apple’s website today and a successor is yet to be announced.
Apple is finally unveiling its seamless glass cube entrance to the Fifth Avenue store on Friday, according to MacRumors. Apple’s Fifth Avenue retail store is one of the most recognized Apple stores in the world and a main tourist attraction in New York City.
$6.6. million in renovations to the Fifth Avenue store will finally be revealed to the public on Friday, November 4th. Since June, there have been a series of temporary walls hiding the work that has now been done to the glass cube entrance of the store.
The official Apple Store app is already a useful tool if you have to sally forth into meat space, allowing you to schedule appointment times at your local Genius Bar, reserve items for pickup at your local Apple Store and the like.
Come November 3rd, though, the Apple Store iOS app is set to gain some cool new functionality: the ability to check your own purchases out at Apple’s physical retail locations.
Apple’s MacBook Pro family wasn’t the only product lineup to get an update today. The Cupertino company has also issued a refresh to its iPad 2 Smart Covers, which has seen the orange cover discontinued in favor of a new dark gray model, and interior lining that’s colored to match the exterior.
Since Steve Jobs passed away on October 5, we’ve seen a stack of awesome of tribute images created from MacBook parts, Minecraft building blocks, and even salt. However, this has to be one of my favorite: a portrait of Steve created with 4,001 Post-it notes.
Londoners who can’t wait to get their hands on the new iPhone 4S have been forming huge queues outside of Apple’s Covent Garden and Regent Street retail stores this morning, hoping to get their hands on the latest device before they’re all gone. Here’s a few snaps from the U.K. stores.
Lots of people are asking why Woz, Apple’s cofounder and still Apple employee number 1, is first in line to buy an iPhone 4S on Friday morning.
I just caught him on the local news, and he has a very good reason.
Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak is already in line for his iPhone 4S. According to Woz’s Twitter account, he’s first in line at the Los Gatos Apple store.
“The long wait begins,” Woz tweeted, “I’m first in line. The guy ahead was on the wrong side and he’s pissed.”
A gang of 14 thieves arrived on mopeds to raid Apple’s flagship store in Covent Garden, London, in the early hours of this morning and made off with a handful of valuable Macs and iOS devices. Robert Shoesmith, a man who is already camping out for the iPhone 4S, was woken up when the store’s alarm went off at around 1:15 AM.
If retail stores are good enough for Apple, they’re good enough for Google.
According to 9to5Mac, the next iPhone isn’t just popping up in AT&T’s inventory system: it’s in Apple’s too, and it’s confirmed to pack a dual-core A5 SoC.
This image of an AT&T van parked outside an Apple store in San Francisco has sparked speculation over whether or not the upcoming fifth-generation iPhone will have 4G/LTE capabilities. Why? Because that Apple store is closed for refurbishment, set to reopen on October 5 — a day after the rumored unveiling of Apple’s new iPhone — and is thought to be having AT&T’s LTE base stations installed inside
.
Apple is set to launch a new pilot program for retail employees that will allow them to borrow an iPad for up to a week. (Yes, a whole week!) The initiative is intended to give staff a better understanding of the product so that they can be more helpful to customers who want to know about the device.
We’ve been anticipating an entire range of new Thunderbolt-equipped gadgets since Apple announced the technology with its latest line of MacBook Pros, and today, the first high-speed external hard drive featuring Thunderbolt technology has hit the Apple Store.
Taking the opposite approach of most American students, China’s Peking University student body is mad at Apple for placing an Apple store inside the campus library. Why? Because it “goes against the spirit and environment” of studying.
After news broke yesterday that Apple had, for the second time in two years, lost an iPhone prototype at a San Francisco bar, the general reaction was one of incredulity. How could Cupertino carelessly misplace their prized corporate secrets twice in a row?
It happens more than you might think. In fact, we’ve got the exclusive scoop on how one guy walked out of his local Apple Store recently with something unique… a complete Time Machine backup of the Apple Store’s internal file server, filed with top secret and confidential Apple Store documents.
Even weirder? Apple just gave it to him.
Apple is reportedly working on a brand new new online diagnostics tool that could solve problems with your iOS device through your mobile Safari browser — saving you a trip to your local Apple store.
New data published by RetailSails this week — an independent analyzer of the U.S. retail industry — has revealed that Apple is the highest ranking U.S. retailer when it comes to sales per square foot, way ahead of companies like Tiffany & Co, Costco, and Best Buy.
“Did you feel that?” That was the question many were asking on the east coast a couple of hours ago. A 5.8-magnitude earthquake sent tremors through New York and the New England area this afternoon, with the epicenter located in Virginia.
9to5Mac has obtained a photo of Apple’s evacuated flagship store on Fifth Avenue in New York City. Once the quake hit, Apple employees and customers were evacuated to Central Park while the store was checked for damages.
Hopefully no one was harmed during today’s earthquake. Stay safe out there, folks.
Apple’s plans to build a new retail store — complete with a glass roof — on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, California, were approved at the Santa Monica Planning Commission meeting last night — apparently without question.
For the past several hours, the Apple Store has been down, but unlike when we usually say that, Apple’s seemingly not doing just maintenance… instead, store.apple.com seems to have totally crashed.
Making things stranger, the Apple Online Store fell over on a Wednesday, as opposed to the traditional Tuesday maintenance period. Some users have reported in the last hour the usual ‘We’re Updating The Store” message… so could a new product be imminent?