The population of Apple Stores in the state of New York will grow by one this Saturday, October 17th. Apple is opening the new Manhasset location on Long Island, about 15 miles east of LaGuardia International Airport.

This will be Apple's 14th store in the Empire State, and will have all of the typical features found at the stores -- the Genius Bar, T-shirted employees, an iPhone Activation Zone, and tables full of your favorite Apple toys. Of course, you can always hang out at the store for the free Wi-Fi and genial atmosphere; we're all expecting our very own David Winograd to be a constant fixture at the store.

We always love to see photos or video from Apple Store openings, so if you're there on Saturday at 10 AM ET and happen to get us some good shots, be sure to upload your work of art to tuaw.tumblr.com.

If you're an Apple retail employee, you might want to keep an eye out for coy glances across the Genius Bar or little notes emailed to your iPhone -- someone may be trying to offer you a job. Word comes via The Loop, citing anonymous sources, that Microsoft's ramp-up process to launching its new line of retail stores has resulted in the harvest & hiring of some Apple Store managers, who in turn are making offers to their hand-picked lists of colleagues with the promise of higher wages in Microsoft's mall outposts. Some managers have been offered relocation assistance to go along with their salary boosts.

You can't blame Microsoft for going after the best in the effort to build out a retail presence (and apparently this kind of bodysnatching goes on all the time in the retail sector), but one does wonder how well the Apple team members will make the transition over to working for Microsoft -- it's a bit more of an adjustment than going from Victoria's Secret to Lady Foot Locker.

It might not just be the lure of more money that draws the iCrew over to the new shops; some may be profoundly dissatisfied with their current working environment, according to an ifoAppleStore report noted by AppleInsider. Frustrations between employees and management at the Alderwood Mall store in Washington have led to the threat of a walkout scheduled for October 3rd, which would be the first such demonstration of labor power by Apple retail employees, according to the post.

If you're an Apple Store employee and you've been approached by Microsoft directly or by colleagues who are jumping ship, drop us a line at tuaw.com/tips and let us know what's going down.

Illustration via the Iconfactory, in belated honor of International Talk Like a Pirate Day.