Mercury News is reporting that Apple is preparing construction on a new “prototype” retail store in Palo Alto, California. The store will be built about a block away from an existing Apple Store at 340 University Avenue.
With work set to begin “any day now,” the new store will reportedly feature a glass skylight and plenty of stone and metal. The $3.15 million project received its building permit on December 12th from the city of Palo Alto.
Did you miss checking out Apple’s new Grand Central Terminal location on its totally insane launch day? Apple doesn’t want anyone to miss out, which is why they’ve posted a 360 degree panorama of the inside of the store on their official website.
Holy crap. Check out this photograph of all the people who queued up for the opening of Apple’s new Grand Central Terminal location, as photographed by Fortune’s Philip Elmer-DeWitt. You’d think this was an iPhone 5 launch!
Also interesting to me: look at the number of Apple Geniuses on hand. Most stores would be lucky to have that many customers at once, let alone need that number of employees to handle their customer base.
We’ve seen a lot of images of the inside of the new Grand Central Terminal Apple Store ahead of its Friday grand opening scheduled for 10AM, but up until I saw this three-minute YouTube video walking through it, I had no idea just how big the space was.
It’s just huge. I suppose it would have to be, given the amount of traffic this store is going to get, but even so, it’s going to take the average person at least a few minutes to walk from one end to the other.
[via Apple 2.0]
We published a couple images of the inside of Apple’s new Grand Central store in New York yesterday, which is due to open on Friday, December 9. Plenty more images are set to surface later on today, with media entering the store for the first time at 10 AM local time.
However, someone with a camera seems to have already gained entry, because we now have even more photos of this terrific store.
With access to over half a million apps in the App Store, getting things done on our iPhones has never been easier. So instead of running around like a headless chicken this Christmas Eve in a desperate bid to buy gifts for all your friends and family, why not sit back, stick your feet up, and do you Christmas shopping on your iPhone?
We’ve compiled a list of the App Store’s best apps for Christmas shopping that will help you plan, save, shop and send cards directly right from the palm of your hand.
Apple’s latest flagship store in New York City’s Grand Central Terminal is set to finally open Friday at 9 AM. While we’ve seen multiple shots of the store’s covered exterior, and even a concept of what the interior will look like, we have yet to see Apple’s finished product on the inside.
Some photos taken inside Apple’s new retail store reveal the Genius Bar and more.
On Friday, Google opened a new Android store with Androidland in Melbourne, a place to hawk Android tablets and phones made by various manufacturers. So how’s it stand up against the Apple Store? Let’s see! (click to enlarge)
Apple Store (left) — Brightly lit, thronged with customers, tastefully designed with the finest materials and well-staffed with bright, enthusiastic employees at the top of their field who are constantly moving to help people with questions.
Androidland (right) — Dark and dimly lit, with a design more evocative of an early 90s Chuck E. Cheese arcade pit than a high-end retail store. Staffed by two disengaged lunkheads, who expertly manage not only to ignore the only customer on the floor, but to be at least fifty feet away from him.
Amazing.
Don’t miss Apple Store vs. Microsoft Store. It’s just as funny.
Earlier this week, we reported on a controversy surrounding Apple’s Grand Central Store, set to open Saturday. Critics are blaming New York City’s mass transit agency for inking a ‘sweetheart’ deal giving the tech giant a huge break on the lease cost. The MTA is now fighting back, telling those wanting an investigation into the Apple store to “bring it on.”
New York State regulators are investigating whether Apple got a ‘sweetheart deal’ when it leased space for its largest store in the city’s Grand Central Station. Reportedly, Apple paid the city’s MTA $60 per square foot for space that normally leases for more than $200. Did Apple throw around its marketing muscle to gain preferential treatment? Politicians are up in arms as Apple preps the the location for a Saturday unveiling.
Your average Apple Store is stuffed with a pulsing biomass of customers clamoring for attention, so how do Apple employees know that you’re the guy they are tasked to help?
Well, how does Apple solve any problem? They leverage cutting-edge technology at the problem, and their system is totally ingenious, if a little frightening to the privacy obsessed.
It was recently reported that Apple was putting the finishing touches on its new flagship store in New York City’s Grand Central Station. The store was supposed to be unveiled to the public by Black Friday on November 25th or during this upcoming weekend.
Eager shoppers will apparently have to wait to drop their hard earned cash on Apple products in Grand Central Station, as the store’s opening “won’t be any time too soon.”
The biggest shopping day of the year is fast approaching. This Friday, countless retailers all over the U.S. will be slashing prices for Black Friday, causing a frenzy amongst shoppers who cannot wait to spend some of their hard-earned cash on discounted goods.
Apple famously recognizes the event by discounting some of its hottest products in the Apple online store for one day only, with savings to be made on new Macs, iOS devices, iPods, and even the latest accessories for your beloved Apple gadgets. This year will be no different, so based on the past few years’ reductions, here’s what to expect at the Apple online store on Black Friday.
We exclusively confirmed way back in February that Apple had plans to build a store in Grand Central Station’s main terminal, and following months of speculation it seems the store is set to open its doors this week, just in time for the Christmas rush.
A good friend of mine recently bought a new iPhone 4S from her local Apple Store. When presented with her new iPhone, the Apple Store salesperson tried to sell her on AppleCare+. It was a hard sell; in her opinion, the Apple Store salesperson went about it in all of the wrong ways. She’s a savvy consumer, reads Cult of Mac and other tech blogs, and has even read my new book. She did her own research before she bought the iPhone. She understood the differences between AppleCare and AppleCare+. She weighed risks of accidental damage against the price and limitations of AppleCare+, and decided the extra protection wasn’t for her.
She passed on AppleCare+, but believes that she might have been swayed if she hadn’t done her homework. She made a choice and, whether or not it turns out to be the right one, she was the one to make it. But not everyone is going to take the time to evaluate the pros and cons of AppleCare+ and will be confronted with this question at the time of purchase. Might you or someone you know fall victim to a hard sell on AppleCare+?
AT&T is set to unveil a new store in the bustling metropolis of Chicago tomorrow, and the new space takes multiple cues from the Apple Stores that we’ve all come to know and love.
The carrier has spent recent months studying some of the most successful retail brands, including Apple, in an attempt to create a better in-store experience for customers. As part of AT&T’s new concept store, employees will be able to checkout buyers by using iPhones and iPads to handle transactions.
Could it get any sadder? Ten years late, Microsoft is finally set to open its sad sack retail store later today at Tysons Corner, pretty much directly across from the original Apple Store that started it all way back in 2001. Needless to say, the world’s pretty much yawning at the news, and so Microsoft is trying anything to get people to attend the grand opening. I’m not sure what’s sadder, though: the fact that they hired a Jonas Brother to draw in crowds, or the fact that the Jonas Brother they hired, Joe Jonas, is both a Mac user and a former entertainment act for Apple, famously drawing scores of screaming teens to the SoHo Apple Store in 2008.
Ron Johnson, Apple’s former Senior Vice President of Retail Operations, who changed the face of retail with the opening of the first Apple store in 2001, left the Cupertino company at the beginning of this month. Replacing him has become a mammoth task for Apple, according to a new report, with external candidates struggling to meet Johnson’s caliber, which may force the company to promote from within its ranks.
A trademark feature at Apple retail stores all over the world is the Genius Bar. Operated by a group of Apple experts, the Genius Bar allows any Mac or iOS device owner to take their device to their nearest Apple store and get technical help, repairs, or replacements.
Along with Apple experts, the Genius Bar sports a line of MacBook Pros which Apple staff use to diagnose problems, order parts for repairs, check the status of your product’s warranty, and more. In this “post-PC” era, however, those MacBook Pros are set to be replaced by the iPad.
httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaQrr3rlNyk
Update: Unfortunately, the video has been pulled again.
An interesting music video by Apple Store employees was floating around the internet yesterday, but the video was eventually pulled. (It was that good.)
Now, the video has been re-uploaded to YouTube for all to see. The rap outlines Apple’s customer support steps of service that new retail employees have to learn.
A gold start to anyone that can sit through the whole song.
Apple’s iPhone 4S has proven to be a huge hit in Hong Kong, with the city’s flagship Apple store selling all of its stock within a matter of hours. The fifth-generation device went on sale at 7 AM local time, but by lunchtime it was all gone.
Appcessories. Just the word sounds cool, blending the popularity of apps with the omnipresent accessories for your Apple device. But can a word create a trend? You decide. The idea is being promoted by a hardware developer that iPhone apps controlling hardware devices could be as big as that watermelon-flavored case or the Nike+ iPod add-on. Indeed, the Apple Store could feature the category soon – or not.
Apple’s iPhone 4S is one of the hottest smartphones available right now, spawning lengthy launch-day queues outside of Apple stores all over the world. In Hong Kong, where the device goes on sale in just a few hours’ time, police have been called to settle violent fights that broke out with a group of South Asian “professional queuers” who attempted to push their way to the front of the line.
Over the course of the last ten years, Apple has built over 350 Apple Stores, so Thomas Park decided to put up a huge gallery of every single one of their store fronts.
The results are here, and it’s actually fascinating to be able to scroll past of all the storefronts in a go. Early on, Apple seemed to favor flanking each entry way to the Apple Store with a piano black monolith emblazoned with the Apple logo, but that quickly fell out of favor in lieu of brushed aluminum and glass whenever possible. As always, though, it’s the exception Apple Stores that are the most interesting in their design: places like the 5th Avenue location, or Convent Garden.
You can find the whole gallery here.
Remember that new cheekily-christened “EasyTheft” system Apple was planning on rolling out to its official Apple Store app? The official update is here, and anyone can now try it out!
