Spyshot: Apple Store San Luis Obispo

I live in SLO and am employed to work at this store. I've spoken with many business owners who are also excited for the store. Don't just think about private buyers, Apple sells to businesses too. And there are a ton in this area that use Apple products.

And the MacSuperstore is well known for its bad service and smug employees, among other things. I would NEVER even enter that store again, much less buy anything from them or take my compy there to be worked on.

As for the opening date, it's "HIGHLY CONFIDENTAIL," although I will say that you can expect it to be open VERY soon.

It's good to see an official Apple store coming to SAn Luis Obispo. The added visibility will help grow the Mac market share locally. They'll sell lots of iPhones to people walking downtown.
S.L.O. closes of the street to cars for a Farmers' Market every Thursday evening. Most shops stay open later that night. The new store will give many people a convenient way to get their hands on Apple products and play with them.
With the growing Apple market there certainly will still be plenty of business for the other store (and the University bookstore). Some will prefer the other store for more convenient parking.
The other store will likely provide even better service than now with some competition, that's a good thing.
There are a number of other communities that'll take advantage of what's in San Luis Obispo, which is about halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, about 8 miles from the ocean. The income in the area is higher than what official figures suggest, since "non-working" students who come to town actually spend plenty of their parents, or student-loan money. With the constant turnover of students the number of potential new customers is probably higher than the population suggests. Students as a group seem likely to be buying more laptops, iPods, iPhones etc than the general population.
Having Apple products available from multiple places is a good thing. Even people discovering Apple-TV and iMac at Best Buy have an increased chance of turning to more traditional Apple sources too if their HDTV shopping trip got them interested in Apple.

It's good for Apple to build up their retail presence before the NTSC tv stations get turned off in 2009. The digital tv transition is bringing huge opportunities to Apple and others that are insightful and ready.

Side note, for a few days there was actually an opening date underneath the Apple logo. I don't remember the exact date, but I believe it was mid August.

OK, just a few numbers from a jealous soul.
Population of SLO County approx. 250,000-one new Apple Store
Population of Riverside County approx. 2 MILLION-NO new Apple Store
Population of Coachella Valley (Palm Springs area) 330,000-No store

Cities in SLO County
SLO Population in 2005 43,926 (down about 1 percent from 2000).
SLO median income $37,400 per capita taxable sales $14,272
Atascadero pop. est. 26,000, median income $48,276
Paso Robles pop. 27,477 median income $39,000
Cities less than 10,000 pop.
Morro Bay median income $40,300
Pismo Beach $54,400

Cities in the Coachella Valley
Palm Desert pop. est 47, 058 (not counting seasonal residents)
PD Median income $58,900, per capita taxable sales 19,125
Palm Springs pop. est. 47,082 PS median income $43,800
Cathedral City pop. est. 51,713 CC median income $47,400
La Quinta (my city) est. pop. 38,232 (up 61.4% since 2000!)
LQ median income $54,552
Indio pop. est. 70,542 median income $38,878
Cities smaller than 10,000
Indian Wells median income $114,500
Rancho Mirage median income $72,900

Now I'm happy SLO is getting an Apple Store. Really. But the Palm Springs area had over $5.22 BILLION DOLLARS in taxable sales in 2004 (and it's only gone up since then).

We have the people.
We have the money.
We have the time.
We have the need.
We don't have an Apple Store.

We'd like an Apple Store, too.

Please.

I'm not really complaining, just jealous.

Wicked burn on MacSuperHorror! Payback for being the smug jerks that they are. Good riddance!

Why are people complaining? One extra Apple store in the world is great, wherever it happens to be located.

I live about 30 minutes away from SLO so this is great news! I bought my Macbook in Thousand Oaks and now I have a place much closer to go to if I need it to be serviced.

I too went to school at Cal Poly and there are definitely a lot of students there that prefer Apple products.

Glad to see this coming.

Between the book store at Cal Poly and the MacSuperstore, SLO needs an Apple store like they need another Poly Royal riot. I suspect that they're just trying to capitalize on the success of one of their own authorized resellers. And, yes, I shop at the MacSuperstore.

I am a student at Cal Poly SLO, and I did pony up the money to buy my own Intel MacPro, and where can I take it if it breaks??? No where close, thats for sure, had many problems with my powerbook as well, and it was a pain.

I also would purchase ProCare if I had a store in a resonable distance, and I think slo is wealthy enough that many of it's citizens would purchase it as well to get some training on their mac.

Oh and the store is right across from Bali's (BTW)