Welcome South Australia to the Apple Store family. The Rundle Place Centre Apple Store will open at 10am local time on Saturday May 25th.
An anonymous tipster from the area sent in the above image which is supposed to be the store before opening.
Not only are Apple Stores some of the most popular retail stores on the planet, they’re also the most successful. This year Apple Stores have continued to outpace the entire industry, and as a result Apple is now making more money per visitor than ever before. According to some analysis by Horace Dediu at Asymco, [...]
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Apple’s current flagship store in San Francisco is in something of a cramped location, so Apple wants to move it three blocks away, to Union Square.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports:
Apple has submitted plans to open a new retail store on Union Square, replacing its nine-year-old store at Stockton and Ellis streets a few blocks away.
Supervisor David Chiu said he hoped the new silver box-shaped computer store and customer service center would “turbo-charge” the Union Square area, which has long been home to many of the city’s high-end retailers.
The new outlet will occupy the space at Stockton and Post streets formerly occupied by Levi’s and be about 45 percent larger than the existing space, though it will include all the same features.
In addition to being larger, the new location will actually employ more workers, although not 45% more: instead, Apple expects just 50 new jobs to be added.
San Francisco is hopeful that while the new Apple Store may be further away from a public transit stop, it will increase foot traffic in Union Square and help boost sales for other businesses in that area. Seems likely.
No date for the move has yet been announced.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
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Update: AllThingsD got its hands on some better images (above) and a statement from Apple on the new store (below):
“We’re thrilled to be working with the city of San Francisco on a new Apple retail store at Union Square…. Our store on Stockton Street has welcomed over 13 million customers since it opened nine years ago, and we look forward to serving them in an amazing new location when this project is complete.”
San Francisco Chronicle reports today that Apple has now submitted plans to open a new store in San Francisco’s Union Square. The new location would apparently replace Apple’s old retail location just a few streets away at Stockton and Ellis.
The new building is said to give Apple around 45% more space than its old San Fran retail location and will apparently occupy a building formerly home to Levi’s in Union Square at Stockton and Post Streets.
Apple thinks it will add about 50 jobs on top of the 350 it employees at its current Stockton street location:
Apple claims the move to the new location will mean an increase of about 50 jobs over the 350 the current location has employed. “We’re thrilled to be working with the City of San Francisco,” read a statement from the Cupertino tech giant.
San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee said his office is working with Apple to find more “green measures” and “energy efficiencies” for the new location. Lee also said he hoped the new location would become the “Bay Area hub” for Apple shopping and customer service inquiries.
Judging by the render above, it appears Apple will go with a slightly new design for the new location that features two stories of retail floor space. There is no word yet on when Apple plans to move into Union Square.
Former Apple Retail Chief Ron Johnson’s time at JC Penney was not a good one for the company. Johnson tried to revamp the retailer’s image from a clearing house for cheap junk sold at discounted prices during an endless spree of “sales” and “coupons” into a refined boutique, a store-within-a-store retail concept similar to the Apple Store.
The result? A $12.99 billion year-over-year decline in revenue that got Johnson fired as CEO after his first year on the job. And if that’s not bad enough, JC Penney is now adding insult to injury by releasing a commercial apologizing for the changes he made.
The new spot was posted to JC Penney’s Facebook and YouTube pages. Here’s the voice over:
It’s no secret, recently J.C. Penney changed. Some changes you liked and some you didn’t, but what matters with mistakes is what we learn. We learned a very simple thing: to listen to you, to hear what you need, to make your life more beautiful. Come back to J.C. Penney. We heard you.
According to JC Penney, the spot was actually approved during Ron Johnson’s watch.
Ironically, while mistakes were made during Ron Johnson’s JC Penney transformation, his core strategy was very sound. He had a deep, abiding respect for JC Penney’s brand and its customers; his biggest mistake was ripping out the old crappy JC Penney before he could fully replace it with the new, shinier one.
Via: JC Penney
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Product showcases in Berlin / (Source: Leslie Pumm via apfelpage.de)
As we have previously noted, Apple is set to open a gorgeous new Apple Store on May 3rd in Berlin, Germany, and now these beautiful showcases featuring Apple’s creative product displays have appeared in front of the entrance.
Each Apple Store features an attractive display at the store’s front presenting the latest product, and Apple’s new iPhone kite display is making its way to Apple Stores around the world.
We find these island showcases to be particularly noteworthy as they seem to blend in with the area’s beautiful architecture while still managing to feature Apple’s aesthetically pleasing product displays.
Inside Berlin’s new Apple Store via ifun.de
Similar to the Apple Store’s Genius Bar, AT&T now allows customers to schedule in-store appointments online for hands-on help in its retail locations.
Here’s how it works:
Visit www.att.com/storeappointment and choose the store nearest to you, or click “Make appointment” when you’re looking up store location information. One of our store or call center representatives can also help you schedule an appointment.
Choose from the available dates and times listed.
Enter your name, contact information and reason for your visit.
Once scheduled, simply head into the local AT&T store at the scheduled time.
The usual system is based around a walk-in queue, which means you could be waiting for any amount of time depending on the crowd, so this should be very useful to AT&T customers.
For the many years I lived in Berlin, one of the perpetual frustrations I had was that there was no Apple Store in the city to shop at. A few weeks after I moved, Apple leased a historical theater in West Berlin’s Kurfürstendamm and started renovating it to be the country’s biggest Apple Store.
Now the scaffolding’s coming off, ahead of the official launch, and iFun.de not only has some great pictures of the process of the newest Apple Store being revealed… there’s some video of the inside. Video after the jump.
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We can’t say we didn’t know it was coming. T-Mobile already started accepting preorders for the iPhone 5 back on April 5, and today marks the first day of official availability for the iPhone on the carrier’s revamped “Un-carrier”, no-contract, unlimited voice and data plans.
To accompany the launch, T-Mobile is also kicking off its first iPhone ad campaign today that begins with the first TV spot above (via TMO News). Of course the ad not so surprisingly focuses on its new carrier approach more so than the device itself:
“It’s the phone that’s revolutionizing phones, make sure its running on the carrier that’s revolutionizing wireless… Only T-Mobile lets your iPhone 5 be as great as an iPhone 5.”
Earlier this month T-Mobile started rolling out a carrier update for existing unlocked iPhones on its network that brings LTE support, improved battery life, visual voicemail support and more. It also started a campaign offering users trade-in value for their old devices to make the switch to T-Mobile.
The iPhone 5 is available to purchase for $99 down with a $20 per month financing plan through T-Mobile’s website and brick-and-mortar stores. As noted by TMONews, the carrier has also started setting up its in-store displays and advertising for the iPhone (Gallery below):
A render by Foster + Partners of Apple’s soon to be constructed Spaceship campus
Following a report earlier this month that Apple’s Spaceship campus project had increased to nearly $5B as lead architect Foster + Partners attempted to trim around a billion from the budget, a new report today claims Apple is now working with the architecture company on other projects. Marketingmagazine claims “sources close to the project” say Foster will soon be assisting Apple with the design of its retail stores:
Sources close to the project said Foster + Partners, which has designed buildings including the McLaren Technology Centre and Hearst Tower in New York, is helping Apple on the retail store design brief.
A Foster + Partners spokeswoman said: “Any project for Apple is confidential and therefore we are unable to comment.”
At this point we have no confirmation from Apple or Foster, but it wouldn’t be much of a stretch that Apple could tap talent from the architecture firm after forming a strong relationship through the spaceship campus project.
As noted in the report, Apple has long worked with design company 8 Inc for many of its flagship stores, but it has worked with others. 8 Inc is responsible for some of Apple’s most iconic retail locations such as the 5th Avenue store in New York and the Regent Street store in the UK.
Update: A reliable source tells us that Apple and Foster + Partners have been working together on retail for a number of years.
