Updated – The flagship stores and others have had a chronic problem with visitors hogging the display computers and using them for hours on personal business, rather than demo’ing the computer or software. As I’ve chronicled here before, people send and receive e-mail, have their appointment and check books open on the counters, and are logged into every conceivable Web site. Now someone at Apple has taken notice of the activity, but not from a crowd point of view. Rather, the stores’ Internet connections are apparently taking a hit from all the bandwidth activity.
According to visitors, Apple is now blocking the MySpace.com Web site to cut down on net activity. Visitors at certain stores who surf the MySpace.com URL are re-directed to Apple’s own Web site. The move is unrelated to the security issues recently swirling around MySpace.com, I hear. It’s not clear what Internet connection Apple stores have, but speeds are at least 1.5+ Mbps upstream and downstream, with some store networks providing 2.5 Mbps speeds.
Update: I’m now told that the blocking was not the result of a corporate decision… which makes sense because Apple actually encourages visitors to use the computers for all sorts of non-demo purposes. In fact, when Apple’s management found out about the blocking, they ordered the local stores to cease the practice. [Read more here.]
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