Apple Retail

Rumors of Apple’s renovation plans for its flagship Fifth Avenue store have been circulating for a while now, but the renovations will soon commence as the company has announced plans to briefly relocate the Fifth Avenue store to a new location during the process…

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Apple has been ordered to pay a $2 million penalty after four retail employees from a San Diego Apple Store filed a lawsuit over meal and rest break policy. The complaint dates back to 2011 and became a class action lawsuit in 2013, although the retail policies were changed following the complaint in 2012.

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Apple is moving forward with plans to open a retail store in the historic Carnegie Library in Mount Vernon Square, according to the Washington Business Journal. Discussions about the possibility of Apple opening a retail store in the Washington D.C. venue were first reported earlier this year.

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Apple’s Black Friday page went live yesterday on the Australian and New Zealand websites as time-zone differences always put them at the head of the queue, and exactly the same deals have now gone live in the USA and elsewhere.

It was clear from the Australian dollar values what the U.S. deals were going to be, and our converted values have now been confirmed.

After checking them out below, you’ll want to check our roundup of the Best Apple Black Friday Deals and up-to-the-second Black Friday deals at 9to5toys.com (rss, Twitter/Facebook) as you can do much better … 

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If you’re planning on buying an Apple product for someone as a gift – or want to have an extended test-drive yourself before deciding whether or not to keep something – you can safely do so knowing that Apple’s extended Holiday Return Policy is now in effect.

Instead of the usual 14-day window to return unwanted items, you can now return them for a full refund anytime up to 8th January.

Items purchased at the Apple Online Store that are received between November 10, 2016 and December 25, 2016, may be returned through January 8, 2017. Please note that all other terms and conditions provided in the Apple Online Store Sales and Refunds Policy are still applicable with respect to such items purchased. All purchases made after December 25, 2016 are subject to the Standard Return Policy.

There are a few exceptions …

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When the first teardown of Apple’s new 2016 MacBook Pro was published earlier this month, a couple notable changes were spotted related to the machine’s SSD. Components for the SSD are now soldered onto the logic board, which likely allows for some design and thinness enhancements, but hurts overall repairability. On top of not being upgradeable, some speculated that meant that if the logic board fails, your data is gone with it. Not necessarily… 

Also present is a new mystery connector on the logic board that repair guide site iFixit noted in its teardown wasn’t connected to anything. It turns out that the mystery connector is actually there BECAUSE of the soldered down SSD, giving Apple a way to access data on a dead MacBook Pro. 

Apple stores have a special tool to assist, and they will be offering any 2016 MacBook Pro customers still under warranty attempted data transfer in the event the device doesn’t boot, according to sources familiar with Apple’s repair process. 

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We’ve been rounding up the best Apple Black Friday deals for the past few weeks but we got a surprise today. Apple let us know earlier that it would have a ‘one-day shopping event’ – Applespeak for Black Friday sale – and the deals have now gone live in Australia and New Zealand. I wrote earlier that we weren’t expecting too much, and that has sadly been confirmed.

Make sure to check our roundup of the Best Apple Black Friday Deals here and up-to-the-second Black Friday deals at 9to5toys.com (rss, Twitter/Facebook)

Apple is offering gift cards with a selection of purchases. These range from Aus$35 ($25) when you buy an Apple Watch or Apple TV, through to Aus$200 ($150) on a Mac – but there’s a sting in the tail …

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Update: Registration is now open.

Apple’s annual Hour of Code workshops are kicking off this year at Apple Stores across the world during the week of December 5, and this year there’s a new app in play: Swift Playgrounds. Apple introduced user-friendly coding app for iPad earlier this year as a way to introduce new developers to Swift, Apple’s programming language.

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Update: Some customers report being able to purchase the new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar at some locations as of Wedneday, November 15th. Other stores will officially start selling stock of the new device tomorrow, as detailed in our original story below.

The new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar will be available at Apple retail stores later this week alongside demo units for customers to try, according to sources familiar with Apple’s plans.

Apple’s new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar has up until now only been available to order with a 4-5 week shipping estimate from Apple’s website, but this week the device will arrive at retail stores as the first shipments are delivered to pre-order customers. So far Apple has only had the new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar models displayed under glass with a demo loop, but this week customers should also be able to get their hands on demo units to try for themselves in at least some locations. 

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Apple is set to reveal new Macs on Thursday at what will likely be the last special event hosted at the company’s 1 Infinite Loop campus in Cupertino. Early next year Apple’s giant Campus 2 headquarters will open and include a dedicated theater for these types of events, so the surprise Mac event is one last hurrah for the current Apple HQ.

And even though it may be about to be replaced with something bigger and better, 1 Infinite Loop does have something fairly new of its own: a dedicated Apple Store that reopened last fall. Apple’s campus store has always sold exclusive collectables like T-shirts and pens, and the Jony Ive-designed retail store adds Apple products just like traditional Apple Stores.

The shirt styles and souvenirs offered change regularly, but head below to see what you can expect to find at the 1 Infinite Loop Apple Store that’s not sold anywhere else if you visit.

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Apple’s Senior Vice President of Retail Angela Ahrendts sat down for a 25-minute plus interview at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit last night and during the appearance shared some interesting upcoming retail news for the company.

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[Update: Additional details below the fold.]

I suggested last week that Apple’s apparent move to remove security tethers from demo devices in its retail stores likely wasn’t too risky thanks to a range of hidden security measures, and we’ve been hearing a little detail on how some of these work.

Apple has long had special OS images for demo devices. You can’t, for example, set a passcode on a iOS device and then lock it, and Macs revert to their original state after a reboot.

Apple regularly tweaks these images. For example, at one time you could go into Safari and change the homepage to any site you liked; there’s now a lock-out to prevent this.

One security feature on the current display models of both iOS devices and Macs is designed to instantly render them useless if someone removes them from the store …

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Update: Apple says its investigation has found no evidence of ‘inappropriate data transfers’ of photos from customer phones – via CNET.

An Apple Store in Australia is under fire for accusations of employees stealing personal images from the phones of customers, as well as taking images of female customers and female staff without their knowledge. The employees then used the images to “rank their bodies” from 1 to 10.

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Apple today officially opened its first retail store in Mexico. The store is located in Vía Santa Fe and marks the “first time customers in Mexico City can experience all of Apple’s products and services in one place.” Apple shared images from the grand opening experience this evening in a news release…

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The rivalry between Apple and Samsung may be about to intensify: the WSJ reports that the iPhone maker is considering opening up an Apple Store very close to Samsung’s HQ in Seoul, South Korea. Perhaps very close indeed!

Apple looked at sites across the street from the Samsung ’s longtime headquarters in Seoul, according to people familiar with the matter.

The move could be a very smart one for Apple …

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Apple is no stranger to flagship retail locations and according to a recent report, Washington D.C. is next on the docket to receive one. The Washington Post reports that Apple has proposed opening a flagship “store and events center” within the Carnegie Library in Mount Vernon Square.

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