Apple Retail

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaL90WROdTI]

Since the original breaking of the Chinese fake Apple Stores news last week, there has been a flurry of activity.  Chinese authorities began investigating the stores over the weekend.  Chinese customers demanded refunds even though they products were real.

Today, Bloomberg is reporting that two of the five stores investigated have been shut down.

Chinese authorities shut two stores in Kunming that used Apple Inc.’s logo without the company’s permission because they lacked the proper business licenses, a newspaper run by the southwestern city’s government reported.

Three separate unauthorized Apple stores, which were also investigated, had operating licenses, according to the Dushi Shibao newspaper report, which was posted on the Kunming city government’s website. Officials inspected more than 300 vendors of electronic products in the city, Dushi reported.

Apple currently has four stores in China.  While that number will increase greatly over the next year, it isn’t surprising to see local businesses trying to fill the void in the interim.
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Apple has issued a recall for a “small number” of 1TB Seagate hard drives in the 21.5-inch and 27-inch iMacs. Apple’s announcement doesn’t go into specifics, but says the systems were sold between May 2011 and July 2011. If you’re are experiencing issues you can take your iMac to an Apple retail store or Apple service provider, or you can contact Apple technical support. Apple will replace the hard drive free of charge. (via MacRumors)

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We’ve received photos of a purported white iPod touch front panel. Specifically, this panel is the digitizer component, according to the iFixYouri iPhone repair shop. We obviously cannot confirm the legitimacy of these photos but according to iFixYouri, they fall in line with the fourth generation iPod touch’s build. Knowing this, these can either be photos of a scrapped white iPod touch 4 in white or (hopefully) photos of the fifth-generation iPod touch’s front panel in white.

Although we have been hearing some whispers of a new form-factor for the fifth-generation iPod touch, the previously accurate Ming-Chi Kuo has reported that the fifth-generation iPod touch will, in fact, come in white and will feature an overall design that is akin to that of the fourth-generation iPod touch. Additionally, iOS SDK data reveals that the iPod 4,2 (possibly the fifth-gen iPod touch) will be more about internal changes. On that note, we’ll likely see the dual-core A5 processor to move the iPod touch ahead in the growing mobile gaming industry, and maybe some better cameras. More info and a few more high-resolution pictures of the white panel are after the break…

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It appears that Apple has dropped the White MacBook from its lineup today with the release of its new MacBook Airs.  Searching for White MacBook still brings up cached pages but going to them yields the Mac Homepage.

For those who like plastic, you can still pick up a White MacBook in the refurb store for $849.

So ends Apple’s relationship with Polycarbonate Macs.
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China might be known as the home of the fake iPhone, but what about whole stores? Surprising almost no one, China is indeed home to the fake Apple Store. These pictures from BirdAbroad (via IFOAppleStore), show a fake Apple Store complete with everything that a real Apple Store offers. Right down to the blue shirts with Apple logos and name labels for the employees. Starting from the top, this ‘Apple Store’ features a shiny exterior with a big glowing, white Apple front and center.

When you walk into the store, you will be stepping on wood or grey stone floors, depending on the section of the store, and will be surrounded by a showroom filled with iPads, Macs, and more… all on wooden tables. These tables are even equipped with the Apple (patented!) product holders. In fact, these tables are nearly identical, if not identical, to the tables used in Apple’s official stores. These stores went as far as to completely rip off Apple’s official press images – as you can see with the iPad 2 and iPod shuffle banners. Also notice the extremely outdated pink iPod posters.

Making this sound even more unbelievable are the twisted stair cases, accessory and software walls (which are nearly identical to the official ones), an area for children with cushy and fun chairs, and of course what appears to be a mini Genius Bar or a section of the store to take product lessons from employees. The most amazing part is what these employees think of their jobs:

Being the curious types that we are, we struck up some conversation with these salespeople who, hand to God, all genuinely think they work for Apple.

The “bosses” of this fake Apple Store, in Kunming, knowing that they are up to no good, informed their multiple plain clothed security guards to ban all picture taking. The best part is that there are three of these stores all within walking distance of each other. Check out some more pictures after the break that are courtesy of BirdAbroad.

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We’re getting word from numerous Apple Stores that the Lion transition has begun.  In this photo taken at the 14th St. Apple Store in NYC by a passerby, you can see Apple employees updating Macs as well as some heavy hardware in the foreground.  Those are reportedly the new signage packages.

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(Penrith Store – Image Flicker via Macrumors)

Current (via TNW) received some fun Apple Store stats for us this morning on the occasion of the Apple Store Opening in Penrith Sydney, Australia.

“Apple Retail has been in business for 10 years. During this period, we have had over 1 billion visitors through our doors, many of whom are new to the Mac, as the Apple Store is the best place to learn about all the latest products from Apple,”

We had over 1 million customers sign-up for our Personal Setup offering last quarter alone.

The country’s first Apple-operated retail outlet opened doors for business 2008 in Sydney. As you know, Apple recently celebrated ten years in retail business. Their retail chief Ron Johnson, credited with turning a risky gamble into a highly profitable business, recently left Apple for JC Penney, where he is due to assume the CEO role February 1 next year. Retail stores are a crucial part in Apple’s success. “Without these stores I don’t think we would have been as successful either”, Steve Jobs remarked at the iPad 2 unveiling in February.

The milestone arrives as Apple’s retail staff is gearing up for the OS X Lion launch. Sources say the company is holding employee overnights today in anticipation of the Lion launch tomorrow. In addition, AppleCare reps have received their Lion training and upgraded their workstations to Lion. Leaked training material obtained by 9to5Mac this morning reveals that Lion will be able to reinstall itself over the Internet directly from the all-new recovery partition, without even needing to boot the operating system and launch the Mac App Store.

Apple currently has 330 open stores, Fiscal 2011 ends September 25th, in just over 2 months…

“Our retail offering continues to growth, with Penrith the 11th store in Australia, since we opened Apple Store Sydney just three years ago. Globally we are planning to have 363 stores in fiscal 2011.”

Speaking of the Penrith Apple Store, there is a special media event for the opening July 23rd at 8am (see below).  The store will open to the public at 9am.

Saturday?  8am?  Journalists? Hehe.
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A new report from Cnet.co.uk seems to imply that Apple could launch a new iPhone on August 16th.  Their source?  A job posting for temporary workers who would work the last two weeks in August.

The job listing, posted by Gekko Ltd., says Apple is looking for a “full-time iPhone Sales Staff for an exciting project to work 5 days a week (Tuesday-Saturday) for the period 16th August – 29th October within key retail stores”. Oddly enough, Apple didn’t post the listing on their own, rather hiring out Gekko Ltd. to find their new Apple Store talent. Gekko appears to have worked with Apple before:

The awards page on Gekko’s website indicates that it has worked with Apple in the past on shops within shops — the specific Apple-branded sections within larger outlets. We’d wager that Gekko is hiring to fill these sections, as one of the responsibilities of the advertised role is to “ensure the Apple area within the store is effectively merchandised”.

Rumors pointing to a September or early October  launch for the new iPhone have been prevalent so far with Apple’s traditional  early September music announcement, but we’re happy to line up early.  Full listing below:
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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iui_BLtj4wg]

One of our readers took it upon himself to jailbreak one of the Apple Store iPad 2 Smart Signs (video above). If you aren’t familiar, the Smart Sign is the iPad in front of each Apple product. As we revealed earlier this year, this sign explains and provides specifications for the product it sits beside.

Customers are not able to actually use this iPad for anything but the Smart Sign application, but with the right top-secret gesture anything is possible. That’s where reader Adrian came in. He figured out the secret gesture, went to the home screen, launched up Safari, and jailbroke the Smart Sign with the new JailbreakMe 3.0 tool.

Now that it has been done, no one else needs to do this, mmk?

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We’ve heard from a few overseas sources that Apple Retail stores are planning ‘overnights’ on July 13th.  Overnights are generally where Apple refreshes store displays and trains up management on new products.  Sometimes it is big stuff and sometimes it is insignificant (at least to us).

July 13th, however, lines up with our Lion release date pretty nicely.  We’re expecting the Lion release obviously, and also some new MacBook Airs which may or may not have faster storage (but not this fast), a Sandy Bridge CPU, HD Facetime cam and Thunderbolts coming out the side.

We’ve heard some stories of backlit keyboards, 3Gs, a black option and the mythical 15-inch MacBook Air HD but they seem unlikely at this point.

Along with the Airs, there have been shortages of the White MacBooks, Mac Minis and (perhaps redesigned) Pros  — everything that doesn’t currently have Thunderbolt — so those could also see updates.  If not on the 14th, then perhaps shortly after.

In fact, MacBook Pros and iMacs with Snow Leopard pre-installed have also seen some hiccups in inventory globally so we’re thinking Apple is going to re-package those items for Lion at some point in the next few months.  Probably sooner rather than later.

Just one question?  Anyone camping out?

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(above, Apple’s Back to School Ads go live –thx)

Last week we told you that Apple was going to unleash its Back to School sale today and would include a $100 gift card to the App Store. We’ve seen the artwork and the packages were supposed to be opened today to be displayed.  That’s what the outside packaging said anyway.

Late last night, @chronic tweeted that there was going to be a slight delay in the unveiling.  We’re not 100% sure if/why the delay happened.  It could have been the abrupt departure of Apple Store Head Ron Johnson or some other issues with the rollout.

But that doesn’t mean that the event isn’t going to happen and that the $100 in credit that we called didn’t happen.

Macrumors posts the image (below) which shows the $100 gift card that we’d heard about.  Apple Stores are rolling out the imagery now (so technically we weren’t off on rollout ;) and the $100 begins tomorrow and goes until September 20.

Remember, Lion is free with any Mac purchased now and there are already significant educational discounts for Apple products.

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Twitter user Chronic, a credible source of Apple rumors in the past (and lately), has dispelled his own rumors of an alleged Sandy Bridge MacBook Air refresh this week. Instead, he writes on Twitter explaining that “source had mixed up part numbers”, it is unlocked iPhones that will be headed to US Apple Stores for Wednesday. Here are your part numbers: MC603 (16GB, Black) MC604 (16GB, White) MC605 (32GB, Black) MC606 (32GB, White). It isn’t clear whether those phones are actually unlocked in the traditional sense or whether they are just being sold without plan like Apple has done traditionally in the past before a major refresh.

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Someone made an iPad with $1.2 million worth of diamonds attached to it.  Worst part?  It is an iPad 1.  D’oh.

Shot of the back below.
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From the Toys section:

The Apple Store offers price drops on select factory-refurbished unibody MacBook Pro notebooks in its Special Deals section, with prices starting at $899. It’s among the best selections we’ve seen from Apple in several weeks, and combined with free shipping, most systems at lowest-we’ve-seen prices. Sales tax is added where applicable. All come with a 1-year Apple warranty, the same as new Macs. Items are removed from Apple’s site when they sell out. Notable laptops:

• Refurbished MacBook Pro MC374LL/A Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz 13.3″ for $899
• refurbished MacBook Pro MC700LL/A Core i5 Dual 2.3GHz 13.3″ for $1,019
• refurbished MacBook Pro MC375LL/A Core 2 Duo 2.66GHz 13.3″ for $1,019
• refurbished MacBook Pro MC372LL/A Core i5 2.53GHz 15.4″ for $1,439
• see all refurbished MacBook Pro laptops at The Apple Store
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In February, the New York Observer ran a story saying that Apple was eyeing a Grand Central Station New York Apple Store, which would be the borough’s 5th.

Reliable sources tell The Observer that the maker of ubiquitous iGadgets—from computers to cell phones—hopes to open a store in the transportation and retail hub, though it has yet to begin the long approval process necessary for opening in a city landmark.

Within days, other sites ran with that info, “confirmed” that a deal had been reached for “Apple’s largest retail space in the world”, saying an announcement was forthcoming and the store would open this Fall.

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An Apple Store Manager relayed to us that the new iPad 2 displays are able to turn into “normal iPads” with a few swipes in secret combination.  To find out if true, I went to the Soho store and tried it out.  Yep, it works.  The button still doesn’t work so it is easy to get yourself stuck – like in Email Setup below:

I’m not going to post the gesture combination unless it hits the web but it does exist and Store managers know it.

Anyway, the moral of the story: Those are normal iPad 2s under the glass, even though they have different part numbers.
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Here’s the little note slipped in with all of the Apple Store 2.0 stuff:

thanks jmfm
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If you’ve ever used Google Apps, you’ve seen what kind of power a collaborative, cross-platform word processor can have.  Today’s Apple iWork.com Web applications fall far short (though they look much prettier) in terms of functionality.  But don’t fret Apple fans!  Patently Apple today shows that Apple is heading Pages toward that same Cloud experience.

While it may or may not be “breakthrough” Apple clearly has plans to put its Pages App/Application into the Cloud.  The sooner (WWDC?), the better.

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Depending who you ask, the Tyson’s Corner Virginia or Glendale Galleria California Apple stores were the first and second Apple stores to open and have gained landmark status as a result.  This week, the LATimes is reported that Apple is opening an Apple Store right across the street from the original Glendale Galleria Store at the new Americana at Brand shopping center.  This is notable for at least one of the following two reasons:

1. It will be the first time Apple has opened a Store across the street from another Apple Store, which will surely be compared to the absurd density of some Starbucks locations.
2. If Apple is instead moving/relocating across the street, it will mean one of Apple’s original Stores will be closed down.  That would be especially tragic since many people view the Glendale Galleria Apple Store as the original.

Though the LA Times frames the situation as “An additional Store”, the second option is given some weight as the Nordstom at the Glendale Galleria is closing up shop and moving across the street.  Apple is already hiring for positions at the new store…
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Update: we just got the following unverified account:

According to my friend who was at the Sanlitun Apple Store when the incident took place, there were dozens of resellers outside the store trying to get the white iPhone 4, they were told to wait in line and was not allowed to go inside. Resellers got pissed and smashed the glass door, which costs about 300,000RMB or 46,000USD, according to an apple employee at the store. Then a foreign(non-Chinese) employee came out from the store with a metal club and hit 4 people, including 2 young men and 2 middle age women. All 4 people are hospitalized right now and no money was paid by apple for medical purposes.

Pictures are just coming in but it appears that there was some sort of incident between “foreign Apple Store Employees” and some locals during the iPad 2 launch.  One account:

The afternoon of May 7, Beijing SanLiTun store Apple, crowds queued to buy the iPhone4 conflict with in-store staff. One stands more than 1.9 metres for expatriate staff armed with iron rods Brawl wounded four customers. A glass door of the store were hit and destroyed by excited crowds. Are 4-bit the injured have been admitted to hospital

Another account has another poorly translated view:

Sanlitun Apple Store bloodshed, because too many people queuing waiting suddenly closed shop, where the weather is so hot multi-line Burongyia, Apple stunned party to a foreigner and a Chinese man actually hands-on, people with the scene confirmed the man was wounded also the guests lined up to buy Apple products.We look at the quality of foreigners, but also that, to earn the money we have in China is also the name of our people.

We’re not sure exactly what went down but it doesn’t look too good.

In other Apple Store glass smashing news, the Westlake Cleveland Apple store was robbed.  24 MacBook and 1 iPod stolen.  Perpetrators were last seen heading east (1999?)

More pictures of bloodied people and one final account below:

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Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs has sent out an email to the company’s team in Japan to share the message of support and help local employees cope with a series of terrifying disasters that have brought the country to standstill. The Macotakara website first published (and MacRumors confirmed it) the contents of Jobs’ email, posted here in its entirety.

To Our Team in Japan,

We have all been following the unfolding disaster in Japan. Our hearts go out to you and your families, as well as all of your countrymen who have been touched by this tragedy.

If you need time or resources to visit or care for your families, please see HR and we will help you. If you are aware of any supplies that are needed, please also tell HR and we will do what we can to arrange delivery.

Again, our hearts go out to you during this unimaginable crisis.

Please stay safe.

Steve and the entire Executive Team

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