Apple Store redesign in the works
Apple is planning a redesign for their retail stores, modeled after the Fifth Avenue store in New York, to allow for displaying twice as many Macs and iPods, as well as 15% more 3rd party Mac software and iPod accessories. VP of retail, Ron Johnson, released a few of these details to Bloomberg, including stainless steel walls, Italian stone floors and a new dedicated iPod Bar.The first two stores to receive the upgraded design will be in Columbia, Maryland, and the Providence, Rhode Island store we reported back in January. There's no word on whether existing stores will receive the facelift, though we would wager remodels would happen (if at all) on a very discretionary basis.
Thanks Marcus
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
RK Bentley said 2:08PM on 9-24-2006
Providence Place Mall Store interior Picture before it opened yesterday courtesy of http://v1.beta.com
http://www.v1beta.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/09/2006-09-23-050049.jpg
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Jeremiah Moon said 2:15PM on 9-24-2006
Re:1 -
Wow, that looks like a freaking museum...
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Justin said 2:34PM on 9-24-2006
Looks like any other apple store to me. But then again I dont pay much attention to silly details like that. However no matter what it looks like I'm glad there is a store near me now.(RI)
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RK Bentley said 2:35PM on 9-24-2006
re: 2
It was taken before the store opened, somewhere between 5am-730am.
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David Kelly said 2:42PM on 9-24-2006
Surely this article was meant to be published weeks ago when the news actually broke?
And using future tense to describe two Apple Stores that are already open seems a little bit silly.
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Taylor AUbut said 3:33PM on 9-24-2006
I was at the apple store in line at 2am in providence waiting for the opening haha...i got a t-shirt! ill upload my full flickr set very soon today showing all the people in the store and a nice shot of a macbook with TUAW on it haha...also i was able to snag that desktop buttons program from one of the computers if anybody is interested.
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Kris said 3:41PM on 9-24-2006
I was at the Providence opening yesterday. Quite a crowd. Personally, I didn't like the design of the store. Seemed really cold and soulless. In the end the design doesn't matter. An ugly design won't stop people from shopping there.
As an aside, a group by me was talking to one of the mall employees. Apparantly there was a water problem at the store, so before opening the store was cleaned with lots of bottled water. She also mentioned that one of the performers from American Idol, which was in Prov the other day (I don't watch the show, I don't know the names) was let into the Apple store a day early to get a new power adapter.
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Alex Marchuk said 4:05PM on 9-24-2006
#6 I'm intrested in that program you snagged. With the buttons in the middle.
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RK Bentley said 4:10PM on 9-24-2006
#6 were you the one interviewed by Channel 10?
If so:
http://www.phantomriders.com/wereontv2.jpg
If so I was right next to you, my bro and friend were the ones there at 5am.
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Taylor Aubut said 4:30PM on 9-24-2006
#8 email me taubut@gmail.com and ill send you the program, its really small
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Kris said 4:37PM on 9-24-2006
You guys are nuts! :)
So is my wife, actually. She's been having problems with her new MacBook (her first Mac) so she set up a Genius Bar appt for 10:20am... on opening day. She told me about it at 9am and we got in line at 9:45.
We were near the back of the line, but we still got shirts :)
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unreal mccoy said 7:03PM on 9-24-2006
My local Apple store in Frisco, TX did away with the mini-auditorium recently. Are other stores doing the same?
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tr said 9:58PM on 9-24-2006
#12, i just went to the apple store here in columbus, oh, and realized they took out the whole big screen/theater thing. the genius bar is now located on that back wall (much like the pic in the first post), with additional iPod accessories and notebook bags to the right of the bar (former location of the genius bar). maybe apple realized that the auditorium/theater wasn't utilized enough to warrant taking up the space.
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Matt said 10:34AM on 9-25-2006
I was at the Columbia, MD opening this weekend (I too got a t-shirt ^^ - but arriving at 8am was enough to be among the first 100, let alone 1000, people in line). I unfortunately don't have many pictures - mall security threatened to confiscate any cameras, video or otherwise, in accordance with mall policy. I will say, however, that there was an iPod focus, with a dedicated table front and center plus a bar along one wall with several various iPods and headphones for listening. The next table past that had a bunch of the external speaker offerings.
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Jaime said 9:37PM on 9-25-2006
My two Apple stores in CO (we have 3, but I can only speak for these two) Aspen Grove & Cherry Creek have both removed the theatre. In its place is the expanded Genius Bar. Then, iPod accessories took over where the genius bar was. I'm sad, I always thought the presentations and lectures would be a good thing to send my Bro-In-Law, Father-In-Law, Friends, Co-Workers to as they are all getting ready to replace win machines in the next year or so with Macs. I wonder if they can still do presentations in any way?
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Hal said 11:17PM on 9-25-2006
The Stanford Shopping Center Apple store has looked like this for almost a year.
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