It has become somewhat of an old joke, but Microsoft’s retail stores are essentially ghost towns. Every once in awhile you’ll see a side by side comparison of an Apple Store filled with busy shoppers sitting right next to a completely vacant Microsoft store.
Slate visited both stores yesterday in Arlington, Virginia. The above image shows Microsoft’s store, and here’s a shot from inside Apple’s:
Apple will begin using iBeacon technology in 254 of its U.S. stores from Friday.
Apple demonstrated the tech this week at its 24-hour Fifth Avenue store in New York City, where the company has installed around 20 iBeacon transmitters.
Hoping to get a nice discount on your next Mac or iOS device this Black Friday? Then you’d better buy it from a third-party retailer. Apple has taken a new approach to its Black Friday deals this year and decided to give away gift cards rather than discount its goods.
Despite some initial rumors that Apple would be opening nearly all of its retail stores on Thanksgiving Day, Apple’s retail outlets will remain open on Turkey Day.
But Apple still wants to get the jump on the holiday shopping season, which is why most Apple Stores this year will open before dawn across the country on the day after Thanksgiving.
The official Apple Store app is finally available on iPad, more than three years after it made its debut on the iPhone.
It offers almost all of the features you’ve come to expect from the iPhone version, including high-resolution photography that lets you see products in “amazing detail,” the ability to find your nearest Apple store and make Genius bar appointments, and lots more.
It was just last week that Cult of Mac was bemoaning the kind of consumer society we live in where we’re so desperate for the latest iPhone that Apple Stores have to be opened on Thanksgiving.
The holiday shopping season will be starting a little earlier this year for Apple, as sources are now claiming that Apple will keep several of its U.S. Apple Stores open on Thanksgiving Day.
What store sells the most iPhones every year? If you named, oh, the 5th Avenue Cube, or the Grand Central location, you’d be wrong, asserts ABC News. Instead, they identify an obscure Apple Store in a shopping mall in Delaware as being the likely contender for selling the most iPhones every year. What wizardry is this?
It still hasn’t been officially confirmed by Apple, but reports suggest that the company will soon begin offering iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C repairs in its retail locations — providing minor repairs and screen replacements for the two latest iPhone models.
In 2011, Jayna Murray was slowly, brutally murdered at a Lululemon shop in a Bethesda, Maryland shopping area. She was bludgeoned with a hammer, slashed over 320 times with a box cutter, then strangled to death. Next door at the Apple Store, employees heard her tortuous screams, but didn’t lift a finger. Not to help her. Not to call the police. Nothing. It was just a day after the iPad 2 launched.
Although no one in the Apple Store was complicit in the murders, it was still a PR disaster for Apple’s retail outlet. Now a new book called The Yoga Store Murder by Washington Post reporter Dan Morse delves into the murder and its aftermath.
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Apple pushed out a nice new update to its Apple Store app for iPhone on Tuesday, which brings Apple Store gift cards to Passbook in the United Kingdom and other countries. The feature made its initial debut just over a year ago, but until now, it was only available to users in the United States.
The iPad Air has been on sale for nearly 12 hours now and early reports are starting to indicate that the higher end models are becoming scarce as initial supply is dwindling. It may not be quite as hard to get your hands on the iPad Air as a the gold iPhone 5s, but our pal who made the extremely useful iPhone Tracker tool is back with an update that will help you find the iPad Air you want.
The simple web app scrapes data from store.apple.com for the most up-to-date info on local pick-up options for the iPad Air. A chart of green and red squares indicate whether local Apple Stores have stock of 16GB, 32GB, 64GB and 128GB units in the color of your choice, so you can know where to head to for the best shot at getting the iPad you want.
Apple Tracker has also been updated to support stock information on the iPad mini with Retina display too once it becomes available this month. Use the drop downs to select the color and carrier you want, press submit and viola. There’s even a purchase button at the bottom of each inventory listing to speed up the shopping process.
Source: Apple Tracker
iPad Day is less that 12 hours away if you live on the East Coast – or already here if you live in Japan. Either way, Apple fans across the globe are already lining up in front of the nearest Apple Store, waiting anxiously to fork over their cash for the new iPad Air.
We don’t expect to see quite as long lines as at the iPhone 5s and 5c launch last month, but early indications show that Apple’s new lightweight tablet will be in high demand over the weekend. One reader in Hong Kong told us their reservation system filled up in 15 minutes.
If you’re planning to brave the night in front of the Apple Store, tweet us a pic @CultofMac. If not, check out all these people crazy enough waiting for their iPad Airs.
Apple announced today that Burberry’s CEO, Angela Ahrendts will be filling the company’s vacancy as Senior VP of Retail and online stores, and while the move came as a surprise to many, Tim Cook says he had been eyeing the Burberry CEO for sometime now.
In an internal email sent to employees this morning, Cook says that he’s wanted to steal Ahrendts away from Burberry from the first time they met in January of this year. Cook describes Angela as “wicked smart” while also being an extraordinary leader with a proven track record. Ahrendts is set to join Apple in spring 2014 as she transitions over from Burberry.
Here’s Tim’s full email:
I just wrote a piece about how difficult it is to obtain the iPhone 5s — particularly if you want the gold model — and Apple has now confirmed that it has completely sold out of certain iPhone 5s models in some stores. Demand for that and the iPhone 5c has been “incredible,” the Cupertino company said, but it’s yet to reveal just how many handsets have been sold so far.
Apple never seems to be able to make enough iPhones to meet launch day demand, but it seems the Cupertino company has found that task particularly difficult this year. The iPhone 5s has proven incredibly difficult to get hold of all over the globe, while that fancy new gold model is near impossible to get hold of.
At Apple’s flagship store in San Francisco, there were just 20 gold iPhone 5s units waiting to go on sale this morning, and they were all claimed before the store even opened its doors.
In case you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll know that the iPhone 5s goes on sale tomorrow around the globe. We’ve been watching the lines start to form via the magic of the internet, keeping an eye on Twitter and Instagram, for starters.
As you get in line tonight, and tomorrow morning, feel free to send us your photos of the queues you’re sitting and standing in to us via email or Twitter.
Here’s several form-ups we’ve seen:
So Apple won’t let you pre-order the iPhone 5s and the very thought of waiting in front of an Apple Store for eight hours send spasms of dread from your eye sockets all the way down the nether regions you don’t even want to think about. Standing in an a line, any line, for hours, sucks.
Yes, it’s a huge time investment, and no one really wants to sit outside an Apple Store for a couple of hours before the break of dawn, but we’re here to help you come prepared and make the most of your iPhone 5s launch line waiting experience. In fact, this could even be a lot of fun. Just follow this guide and you’ll be in and out of the store and cradling your precious golden iPhone in no time.
Before making iOS 7 available to the public, Apple is updating some of its apps with the new iOS 7 look and feel. The Apple Store app and AirPort Utility just got new icons this morning, along with iOS 7 optimization and a refined user interface. As far as new features go, there aren’t any that we’ve spotted yet, and nothing in the release notes indicate these are anything more than a fresh coat of paint.
Source: iTunes
The iPhone 5c pre-orders went off this morning without a hitch and supply for days, but Apple has decided not to offer pre-orders on the high-end iPhone 5s. Customers looking to grab Apple’s newest smartphone as quickly as possible will be pleased to know that you can wake up at 12:01AM PDT next Friday, buy your iPhone 5s, and get back to bed without suffering through the Apple Store launch lines.
Apple sent customers an email this morning announcing the iPhone 5s will be available to order from the Apple Online Store starting at 12:01AM PDT on September 20th. The lack of pre-orders probably means everyone’s going to slam Apple’s servers at midnight, and who knows how long initial supply will last. But if you miss out, you can always go to your nearby Apple Retail Store which will open a couple hours early at 8AM on the 20th to take your money.
Apple is well known for its gorgeous retail stores that draw impressive crowds on launch days, but the actual work that goes into the construction of each Apple Mecca is pretty impressive in its own right. An internal Apple video has been published on YouTube highlighting all the details that went into the construction of Apple’s pop-up store at SXSW for the launch of the the iPad 2.
Check it out:
Apple’s 30-day concert series is about to take off in just three days, so to promote the iTunes Festival and the bevy of artists that will be putting on free shows, the Apple Store iOS app is giving away six free tracks to iOS users.
To get the free tracks all you have to do is download the Apple Store app and then tap on the “30 Nights of Music” section on the main screen. The offer officially expires on October 31st, 2013.
The full track list:
We’re big fans of the Philips Hue lighting system, which allows you to control your house’s mood and lighting with a slick iOS app. The only problem is that there’s been only one kind of Hue lightbulb until now.
But the Hue lineup is getting more versatile. Philips is set to expand their funky Wi-Fi-controlled lightbulb line with LightStrips and Bloom Bulbs.
Apple has begun giving away free content today via the App Store app for iPhone. Its first giveaway is for Color Zen, “a new and addictive kind of puzzle game” for iOS which is available free for a limited time “exclusively for Apple Store app users.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqIqsA3kTA8
Remember that lady who lost her frickin’ mind in the Apple Store over being told she needed to get an appointment? Jimmy Kimmel asked The Backstreet Boys — looking these days like what they call “rough trade” — to immortalize her immortal Vine loop, which you can see below.
