The Clarendon Apple Store in Arlington, VA is closed today as police investigate a shooting that took place there this morning. The Washington Post reports that a woman was injured via a gunshot to the shoulder during an armed robbery attempt. TV station WJLA adds the detail that the victim was an employee who went to answer a knock at the store's rear service door.

I've shopped at the Clarendon store, and the staff has always been unfailingly helpful and courteous. I hope that the victim of the shooting enjoys a complete and prompt recovery, and that the Clarendon team can also recover quickly from what must be a very traumatic experience.

Via jdonels tweet, thanks Chris Anderson.

We snuck past the line into the glass cube, and got some pictures of the well-behaved crowd downstairs in the 5th Avenue store who were buying and activating their phones (and also checking out the new MacBook Pro lineup while they were there).



Erica's in line at the Cherry Creek Mall in Colorado and sent us a few quick snapshots.



If you want to catch every moment of launch day, take a look at Cnet's liveblog from around the country.

Apple and AT&T are preparing for the launch of the iPhone 3G S on June 19th by opening their doors early. Specifically, many Apple Stores will be open at 8:00 AM. Of course, the phones will be sold on a first-come, first-serve basis, so standing in line with your credit card might not guarantee you a handset on launch day. Go through the pre-order process if you're concerned.

Additionally, AT&T stores have setup pre-ordering online, and customers who take advantage will be able to show up at 7:00 AM. For more detail about AT&T's plans, check out Seth's video above.

Good luck, shoppers. Is it crazy that I want the white one?

[Via MacNN]

Clayton Morris noted on his blog Sunday that iPhone 3G demo units have been removed from display at his local Apple store.

While it is not uncommon to see one or two displays missing for various reasons, Clayton noted that there were at least nine units missing from the main iPhone display tables. Couple this with reports from some Apple stores that they have additional staff scheduled for the next couple of weeks (starting today), and you have some pretty good signs that the new iPhone model might just be available today.

[via AppleInsider]

If things had turned out just a bit differently in the late 1990's, we might not be visiting Apple Stores. Instead, we'd be talking about the food we ate and the movies we watched at the Apple Cafe.

TUAW reader and Guifx Director of Operations Morgan Strauss told us about his post on the Guifx blog recalling a retail concept that Apple announced on November 12, 1996. No, they weren't planning on selling Macs, iPhones, iPods, and the occasional Apple TV -- instead, Apple announced that they were going to open a chain of Apple Cafes throughout the world.

The Apple Cafe was to be a high-tech cybercafe where you could order healthy food while videoconferencing with people at nearby tables, surfing the Web, and pulling up movies or TV shows on a small kiosk screen at your table.

Strauss owns two architectural paintings (below) that were produced by artists for Landmark Entertainment Group, which was partnering with Apple and a company called Mega Bytes International in the proposed venture. The paintings show the proposed 15,000 square foot Los Angeles location, which was to be the flagship of the chain.
The concept was quietly scrapped before it ever got off the ground, which is probably fortunate considering the dwindling popularity of other theme restaurants. Be sure to visit the Guifx Blog to see the paintings in detail.

New York City's flagship Apple Store, located on 5th Avenue in Manhattan, is doing tremendous business. According to The New York Post, that store raked in $440 million in one year. Of course, the location doesn't hurt. It's right by Central Park and the huge, glass cube is a real tourist draw.

The Post also notes that the SoHo store pulled in $100 million, but didn't provide any stats on the West 14th Street store. In the meantime, construction has begun on what's rumored to be a fourth NYC store, expected to open at the corner of 67th and Broadway on Manhattan's Upper West Side later this year. If that store and a rumored Brooklyn store are opened, NYC would boast six stores total (including the Staten Island store).

Apple intends to open 25 new stores for fiscal year 2009, half of them outside the United States.

[via AppleInsider]

Chicago's Halsted Street will soon be the site of a unique Apple Store -- the first with three sides exposed. When seated on the odd piece of land, the store will offer visibility from every direction and 650 linear feet of storefront.

As you can see from the map at right, the architects at Bohlin Cywinski Jackson have a tough task ahead with this project. ifoAppleStore.com wants to know, how would you design this store? They're running a contest now to find the most interesting or clever design. Submit your drawing to gary@ifoAppleStore.com by June 15, 2009, and the winner will receive a $100 Apple gift card.

They note that you needn't worry about the store's interiors in your drawing. Note that Apple's chunk of property is 215 feet on Clybourn Ave., 220 feet on Halsted St., 123 feet on W. North Ave., and a curving 81 feet at the back of the transit station.

Have fun and good luck!

For new customers wanting an iPhone 3G, you now have another way to buy it - ordering straight from Apple, an option that hasn't existed since the original iPhone was sold. Online purchasing was taken away with the introduction of the 3G. AT&T brought it back in December, and only now has Apple caught up.

New subscribers can activate their service online, then have their new iPhones shipped straight to their door. Current AT&T customers will need to reserve their iPhones online, then go pick them up at the Apple Store.

As I found out last month, having existing subscribers go in to pick up their iPhone can be a very good move, because things can certainly go wrong. When I went to the Apple Store to pick up my new iPhone 3G, it turns out that when I purchased my original iPhone in November 2007 that they didn't enter it into the system properly. I was nearly charged the full price of the iPhone rather than the subsidized price offered to those who wanted to upgrade from EDGE to 3G. A trip to the nearby AT&T store took care of that, but it was the sort of thing that was far easier to handle in person than over the phone. They were able to pull up my original receipt and override the system so I was recognized as a previous adopter rather than someone just trying to break my original contract.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

When I was a young lad in Scranton, Pa, pierogi in one pocket and anthracite coal in the other, my mother and I would wait for the Colts bus in front of the Globe Department Store. Now, before you assume that this post will be nothing more than endless, irrelevant Andy Rooney-style sentimentality from Dave, I'll tell you that it's only in the first two paragraphs.

The Globe staff created ornate window displays with those animatronic figures that seemed festive at the time but would later scare the daylights out of me. I was reminded of Scranton and The Globe last winter during a visit to Boston's Boylston Street Apple Store, where I photographed the elf at right. The adjacent window had a similarly-stylized Santa holding an iPhone, and both were very cute with a 1960's claymation appeal.

The Association for Retail Environments must have liked them as well, as they awarded Apple's "Holiday Santa iPhone" window display "Best Visual Presentation," along with the "Back to School" and "Cherry Blossom Nano" displays. You can read more details on the awards here or download a PDF with additional details. Well done, Apple!

Say, just for the sake of argument, that you're Psystar. You've been served by Apple for selling (they claim) illegal clones of their machines, and selling their OS (which you claim isn't even copyrighted) on illegitimate hardware. Sure, you've won a minor victory in the battle, but generally, the opinion is that you're a dead company walking -- when a company like Apple not only has it out for you but has pretty legit claims to back themselves up, you could be said to be in trouble. And so, what do you do?

Well if you are Psystar, you apparently release more computers. Determined to stick it to Apple as hard as they possibly can before they're legally wiped off the map, Psystar has announced the release of the Open(3), a desktop running OS X and packing up to a 2.53GHz Core2Quad Q8200 processor, up to 4GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, and all of the other usual options you'd want on a machine like this (6x Blu-ray burner, GeForce 9500GT). Technically, the box starts at $599, but as Engagdet notes, even if you max it out to around $2000, you're still paying less than an equivalent Mac Pro.

This is pretty much the computer retail equivalent of Bugs Bunny kissing the hunter. We can imagine Apple's lawyers steaming from the ears at this point -- here's hoping Psystar gets to have their fun while they can.

Remember the pre-Macworld buzz about a $99 iPhone 3G? Well, how about a $99.99 iPhone 3G?

Several sharp-eyed TUAW readers have let us know about a deal that Best Buy is offering for Reward Zone members. If you're a Reward Zone Premier Silver member, you can buy an 8GB iPhone 3G for US$99.99 through February 28th. The 16GB model is available for US$199.99. If you're a regular Reward Zone member, you pay just US$50 more for your iPhone 3G -- US$149.99 for 8GB, US$249.99 for 16GB.

Best Buy notes that you must be an existing Reward Zone member as of February 21, 2009, to take advantage of the special pricing, so you can't sign up for the program today and expect to get the discount. A two-year activation is required as well. If you're eligible and interested in getting a new iPhone 3G for a penny less than US$100, click the "Source" link below for details.

After extended delays and much anticipation, the Greensboro, NC Apple Store at Friendly Center finally opened its doors yesterday to paying customers.

The photo here is courtesy of the Iconfactory's Talos Tsui, who appears momentarily in this local news coverage from prior to the store open; unfortunately, his colleague Gedeon Maheux is misidentified as "Corey Marion" in the clip. Whoops! Perhaps that lingering closeup on the Twitterrific icon in the store window will help soothe the pain.

You can check out all the Greensboro excitement from those who were there:

• The Triad's newspaper story
• iPhone Savior's post
• Before and after stories from the News & Record (money quote: "'Welcome home,' general manager Dave Arnold shouted to the crowd before letting the first customer inside...")
• More photos from Frijole, and his tumblog of the campout

The store's official page, with event schedule and directions, is at Apple's retail site. See Talos' video from inside the store in the second half of the post.

We've been waiting for this opening for a long time. Way back in July, we posted a photo of what (we thought) was the Greensboro store. It turned out to be a Williams-Sonoma.

Next the launch date got pushed back, as Apple decided to make an even larger store than what was originally planned. This time, we've got official word.

Apple Store Friendly Center (doesn't that sound nice?) will open Saturday the 21st at 10:00 AM. This store is located at 3320 West Friendly Center in Greensboro. If you attend this opening, lets us know! We'd love to see your photos and stories.

Microsoft is giving retail stores another try, even after closing its only store at the Metreon in 2001. It plans a "small number" of stores, but did not mention locations or size.

The company is hiring Walmart veteran David Porter -- an expert at negotiating deals between the movie industry and the big-box retailer's expansive DVD sales division. Porter most recently worked at Dreamworks Animation, managing worldwide product distribution for their games and movies.

The stores apparently will be geared for sales and education about Microsoft's product line. Porter said, "I am excited about helping consumers make more informed decisions about their PC and software purchases, and we'll share learnings [sic] from our stores with our existing retail and OEM partners that are critical to our success."

If Microsoft is aiming to compete with Apple on a retail level, they seem to be omitting a key part of Apple's retail success: Service. The Genius Bar is arguably the most crowded area in Apple retail stores, with every store booking appointments well in advance. A Microsoft service bar for both PCs and Zunes could be a very popular destination. If Microsoft stores can offer a competent service experience for the vast diversity of PC hardware, they might have something.

Microsoft has a 20,000 square-foot "Retail Experience Center" in Redmond, on the company's corporate campus. The Center is designed to show how Microsoft products can be used in every corner of a business' operations: from the loading dock to the reception desk. It's unclear if it will serve as the model for Microsoft's new retail initiative.

[Via ifoAppleStore.]