Flak Magazine: The Apple Store, 06-05-01

One of the two first-ever Apple retail stores opened in my local super-mega-fancy mall, a place complete with that ridiculous tourism mecca, the Rainforest Café. On opening day, the store's most prominent feature was the line to get in — it stretched for blocks inside the mall and was said to terminate in the parking lot. Mac lovers hungry for retail validation and the companionship of other users stood starring, eyes wide, at the store's glass front.

No more heading for the tiny Mac section at the back of the CompUSA. No more praying for a salesperson who knows how to install iMac memory. And most importantly, along with the company's renewed success, the store's existence means no more worrying about the company succumbing to the great and powerful PC.

Picture windows that front the store are filled with blown up Mac OS X screeen shots, edged by glowing Apple icons on black backgrounds; you are now entering the enshrined celebration of all things Mac.

The interior looks like an interactive gallery, with high ceilings and white walls dropping behind rows of glowing computers. There are tables of Titanium laptops, the newest G4s and CD-burning iMacs, set up so customers can see how they work. Moreover, so new customers can see how easily they work and how cool they are. "Easy" and "cool" is exactly how the company has marketed itself for the last five years, and the store amplifies that image.

Black bookcases run down the center of the store housing software and peripheral-goodies, including digital cameras, Palm Pilots and MP3 players. There's a place for kids to try out video games and set-ups where you can take your own digital photo and print it out on an Epson printer. There's a tiny theater in the back of the store where some gifted Mac employee is demonstrating how to download music off an Internet radio station. There's even a bar where you can pull up a stool and attempt to stump a Mac Genius who, unfairly, can turn to a red emergency phone if he can't come up with your answer.

The store's aesthetic is sparse and clean, the white space broken up only by brightly colored posters. Its style is innovative and certainly distant from its only mall rival, the ever-cluttered Radio Shack, but it does emulate the edgy marketing of other successful retailers, like Target and Gap. Nothing about the store itself is particularly surprising — except simply that it's there.

Virgin Mac users may be surprised by the sense of community the store's designers aim to create. The description on the store at the Apple website notes that the genius bar is not only a place to ask questions, but also where to catch up with "the local Mac community." The exuberant swarm of Macheads, cleverly disguised as sales people, also heightens this sense. They chat you up; they make you believe they will welcome you into their club. "Don't even think about going to that Gateway Country; they're not cool like us."

This sense of community is nothing new to long-time Mac users, but never before was it so consciously orchestrated by the company. It developed through tiny retailers across the country who have been loyal to Apple through good times and bad. The company stores, along with increased prominence of the online store, could cut out the independent Mac retailers — the heart and soul of the traditional Mac community. Adding insult, new Apple products will be available first in the company stores and on the website, leaving long-time retailers at a competitive disadvantage. However, with Apple planning stores only in major tourist centers, the increase in Apple's profile may actually aid independent retailers.

So — will this store succeed in bringing Macs to the 95 percent of screen-staring e-mail freaks that choose to PC? No way. But it will bring new users and warm the hearts of those already proudly enamored.

Say it out loud: "Well, it is the superior platform. You should check it out."

— Karen Kersting (kekersting@earthlink.net)