The big news here in Palo Alto (if you want to call it big news……) is the grand opening of the huge
Apple store in the oh-so-chic Stanford Shopping Center. They’ve been building the place for months and months, keeping it hidden behind a giant curtain. Everyone knew it was being constructed, but Apple thought they’d pretend it was a big secret.
I swung by there today, just out of curiousity, and I’ve got to say, this is the second time I’ve been surprised at how few people are in Apple’s store. After all, their grand opening was only 48 hours ago. A few weeks prior, I peeked into the Apple on University Avenue, and one would think they were looking inside the always-vacant Microsoft store. Nine out of ten people in there were retail employees.
In spite of its emptiness, it’s unquestionably a lovely place. It’s nearly ten times the size of the shoebox-sized outlet that Apple maintained in the same mall for many years, and it’s pretty much a solid glass cube. Here are a couple of snapshots:
They’re going to have to sell a lot of iPads to pay the rent on a place like this. Anyway, tomorrow (Tuesday) is the “big event” with Apple, at which they’re going to introduce the new iPhone, the new version of iOS, and God-knows what else. Long gone, however, are the 4-day campouts in front of Apple stores that preceded each new phone. Apple’s still a big success, but iPhone madness has gone the way of Beatlemania.
