(Update: By the request of Apple’s legal department citing trade secrets, we’ve been asked to pull the images from this post.)
Screenshots of Apple’s new RetailMe application for internal iPads have surfaced today. Full of attractive new features, the software is expected to be the tool every Apple retail employee uses when ‘Apple Store 2.0’ goes live on Sunday.
As Apple commemorates the 10th anniversary of the Apple Store retail launch, it’s fun to take a look back and see what things were like a decade ago. In the pre-launch video below from 2001, Steve Jobs gives us a walkthrough of Apple’s newest creation.
On the day of Apple’s 10th Retail Store anniversary, not everyone’s celebrating: in fact, a small but vocal group of Apple Store employees is working hard even now to unionize in response to what they term unfair treatment and compensation.
It is increasingly looking like the huge event Apple has in store for May 22nd isn’t a new product launch, but instead the unveiling of what is being christened Apple Store 2.0… an all new and improved retail experience which could also debut NFC-based payments, and possibly a surprise from Square.
Confirming our exclusive report last week that Apple Stores were scheduling meetings with all retail staff in late May, we’re now hearing reports that all Apple Stores in the United States will hold all-hands meetings for the morning of Sunday, May 22nd. And given the preparations and secrecy, something big seems like it’s about to shakedown in celebration of Apple’s ten year retail anniversary.
Cult of Mac has learned Apple could be scheduling secret employee meetings with retail staff on May 28th between 8 and 10am. Is this just pre-WWDC preparations, or something more?
It looks like Microsoft’s plan to beat Apple in the retail space by building their own Microsoft Stores right across from mall-based Apple Stores is paying off: Microsoft’s successfully chased Apple out of its space in the Bellevue, Washington shopping mall.
It’s something of a pyrrhic victory, though. Apple’s just moving to the second floor of the mall to a larger retail space. Directly overhead, overlooking Microsoft’s store, where it will literally be living in Apple’s shadow. If there was ever a time to LOL, this is it.
This is one trend you will either love or hate. It seems that dancing at the Apple Store (and posting the performance to YouTube) continues to grow in popularity. Why let iPod-toting dancing silhouettes have all the fun when you can do it yourself at a mall near you? Especially when every MacBook has an iCam.
One frequent dancer many have seen is iJustine, who’s been dancing at Apple Store locations around the country for several years. Last week the mythical White iPhone 4 finally shipped, so Justine celebrated the occasion down in Orlando. And several shoppers joined in!
For some people, getting the chance to work for Apple seems like one of the coolest jobs on the planet. Being surrounded by everything Apple. Super discounts on iMacs. Talking to customers about how incredibly magical the products are. If that all sounds awesome to you, then go ahead and disregard the fact that it’s easier to get into Harvard University than to get a job at Apple.
Here is Cult of Mac’s first-hand look at how the Apple hiring process plays out.
Job listings for ‘Store Leader’ positions on Apple’s German site suggest that the company is opening a new retail store in Augsburg, Germany, which could be its sixth in the country following the recent opening of the Dresden store.
The listings were first picked up by German Mac blog Macerkopf.de (Google translation) after selecting the state of Bavaria in Apple’s online job search. It’s unclear where exactly in Augsburg the new store could be located, however, it’s expected it will end up in the biggest mall in that area – the City-Galerie Augsburg – around 40 miles from the Munich store.
Apple announced that it plans to open 40-50 new stores in 2011, around half of which would be located outside the United States. At the end of the company’s first fiscal quarter for this year, it had 236 stores in the U.S. and 87 internationally.
[via ifoAppleStore]
Shipping times for the iPad 2 from the Apple online store have dropped today, with new orders now facing a wait of 2-3 weeks down from the previous 3-4 weeks. The new shipping times aren’t just U.S. specific either – they apply to every country in which the iPad 2 is currently available.
A reduction in the shipping delay of the second generation iPad is a sign Apple is clearly dealing with the overwhelming demand of the device’s international launch.
The battle against the jailbreakers has always seemed to be an uphill one for Apple; it takes hackers just days to break into the latest iOS releases, and last year federal regulators said that it was no longer illegal to hack or jailbreak an iPhone. However, there is one thing Apple can but a definite stop to, and that’s accessing Cydia using its Wi-Fi networks in Apple retail stores.
If you try accessing Cydia on a device connected to one of Apple’s Wi-Fi hotspots, you’ll be surprised to see Apple’s website load instead.
Although this isn’t going to deter jailbreaking one slight little bit, it’s still rather funny.
[via iPhoneDownloadBlog]
Plans to build a 16,000 square-foot Apple store in the balconies of Grand Central’s main terminal may have been abandoned by the Cupertino company, according to a source close to the M.T.A., who says that preliminary negotiations have fallen through.
Jeffrey Roseman, a retail executive for Newark Knight Frank, posted a tweet on Thursday that backed up these claims, and indicated plans for Apple’s largest store in the world weren’t going ahead: “Lets see if Apple NOT coming to Grand Central, gets as much press as it got, when the rumor started.”
The store was expected to open this September, celebrating 10 years of Apple retail, and attracting some of the 700,000 people who visit the terminal each day. A source for Cult of Mac confirmed Apple’s plans to build the superstore back in February, however, it seems that the M.T.A.’s strict guidelines made Apple’s plans too good to be true.
<strong>Note from Leander: I’ve reached out to my source who said the deal was signed, sealed and delivered. I’ll report here what they say.
The Apple Store just went offline. New goodies coming soon!
Does it mean the iPad 2 will be available to order today?
Reddit user labuzan posted a nice story today, detailing how a family iPhone went through the laundry, and what happened when they took the dead device to an Apple Store and told their story.
The results were not what you might expect.
Instead of charging for a replacement phone, the Apple employee serving them handed one over free of charge, saying: “We made an exception.”
Needless to say, a family already loyal to Apple just got its loyalty quotient increased by several notches.
LAS VEGAS, CES 2011 — A lot of people complain about Apple’s stonewalling, but be thankful you’re not iKlear.
The popular screen cleaning company was horrified when Apple retail suddenly dropped its products from the stores — without a word of explanation.
“We’d been with them for more than eight-and-a-half years,” said Monica Younghein, spokeswoman for the family run business.
The company’s business halved overnight. It’s at CES trying to build business back up.
What made the blow especially painful, is that 11 months earlier Apple had chosen iKlear as the exclusive worldwide supplier of cleaning products in Apple stores. Apple retail is now selling similar cleaning products from a competitor. The competing products are inferior, said Younghein.
“It’s a disservice to Apple users to sell products that don’t work well,” she said. “And we don’t know why they did it.”
I have a bet for my pinky finger with a certain man from the south that Apple will never release the white iPhone 4.
What’s the point? After long delays caused by light leaking onto the camera sensor, the white iPhone 4 has been delayed nearly nine months… and the next-gen iPhone is, at best, due out a mere three months after the white iPhone 4 is set to debut. At that point, anyone who wants one is going to just wait for a white iPhone 5.
I’d always assumed Apple was just hoping that delaying it until spring of 2011 would just get everyone to forget about the white iPhone 4, but their latest official signage at Apple Stores around the country reminds people that the albino iPhone 4 is still coming.
Crap. Maybe I’m about to lose that pinky bet after all.
Microsoft’s attempts out replicate Apple’s successes in the retail space have always seemed… well… rather bereft of imagination and mindlessly emulative. Microsoft Stores almost always are opened in the same malls as Apple Stores, sometimes directly across the way. Instead of a Genius Bar, there’s a Guru Bar. And so on.
Microsoft’s “Me Too”ism in the retail has simply been painful to watch… so painful that it prompted us to write a post entitled “Why Microsoft’s Mall of America Store Will Fail” just last month.
Looks like we were right. According to the LA Times, Microsoft’s retail stores are a complete bust, despite having been designed by George Blankenship, who helped build Apple’s own retail stores.
Although the rest of the gadget blogging community never has any shortage of scale-model Enterprises or working 8-bit computers built block by blockto write about, it’s harder for us Minecraft lovers here at Cult of Mac to find an opportunity to declare our adoration for the charming and addictive voxel-based world builder.
Thankfully, one resourceful Apple fan has just come to our rescue with an incredible recreation of the famous 5th Avenue Apple Store.
Following Thanksgiving as it does, Black Friday — and it’s smaller and more stupidly named sister “holiday.” Cyber Monday — is generally an America-only affair, but not if you shop directly from Apple, who are now teasing their November 26th “one-day Apple shopping event” both domestically and internationally.
We personally love it, but not everyone thinks the new AppleTV is much of an improvement over the old model, which featured local storage, legacy outputs, was fairly easily upgradeable and was easily hackable with great media center software like the Boxee Box.
If you’re one of those nostalgists and think the AppleTV took a step back when it became a streaming media only affair, good news: Apple’s dropped the price of the 160GB first-gen AppleTV from just $50 more than the new model.
Of course, buy that and you’ll miss out on the inevitable fun that everyone is going to start having once jailbreak developers start really mastering the capabilities of the new iOS-driven AppleTV, but heck, there’s always room for both in your entertainment center.
Earlier this week, Apple finally launched a local version of its online retail store in China.. and within 10 hours managed to completely sell out of all available iPhone 4s. As 9to5Mac notes, since Apple’s attempted on cracking down on iPhone 4 scalping in its retail stores by forcing anyone looking to buy a handset from them directly online, this effectively means there’s not a single iPhone to be had in the country… unless you’re willing to pay a scalper his premium.
The Apple Store app just got some new functionality that that will make it easier and more painless to meet with your local Genius Bar tech barista for the speedy identification of your iMac’s ills.
UPDATE: Well, turns out we were wrong about this one; it’s been around for awhile. Crow, anyone?
That rumor we mentioned yesterday — the one where we thought Apple would announce a new social network based around Apple Genii? Turns out Apple quietly added something very close to what we predicted yesterday during the virtual Apple Store’s refresh for the new MacBook Air and iLife ’11.
Back in the flower of my youth, I took a job at the local mall working as a minimum-wage cashier at a discount clothing outlet permeated with the distinct smell of moth balls. It was awful. My boss had a greasy pencil moustache and a lazy eye and was overly complimentary about the softness of my hands; my only customers were antique, gum-sucking grannies buying pre-soiled brassieres and underpants by the carriage full.
Meanwhile, across the way, my friend Josh had landed himself a job in a posh clothing boutique aimed largely at girls in their late teens and early twenties. It being summer, there seemed always to be a bikini sale going on, and I can’t even count the hours I spent watching him through the greasy yellow plate glass of my work store window, encouraging the buxom and spritely clientele — freshly emerged from the changing rooms in some impossibly flosslike two-piece to show off to their friends — to take a bounce on the complimentary trampolines that had been installed around the show floor. It was enough to make an undersexed teenage boy spill a vein in sheer impotent jealousy.
This memory came flooding back to me when I first saw the picture above of the Mall of America’s new Microsoft Store, which is currently under construction directly across from the Apple Store.