The Gravis chain of Apple authorized resellers opened a new store in Berlin (Germany) on Monday, offering 16,000 square-feet of bright-white space on two floors. The store is located in Ernst-Reuter-Platz, west of the Tiergarten and north of Kurfürstendamm, a location I scouted in 2005. The area caters to students from Berlin Technical University and [...]

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By a narrow 3 to 2 vote, the San Luis Obispo (Calif.) city council has approved certain architectural changes to the downtown space at 899 Higuera Street, the site of a proposed Apple retail store. The decision means that Apple can now begin the construction process on the store, city officials say. The council’s vote [...]

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The full Planning Applications Committee in Glasgow (Scotland) has given conditional approval to Apple’s plans for a store at 147 Buchanan Street in that city. At its regular meeting last week, the Committee accepted the recommendations of the Director of Development and Regeneration Services to approve the interior renovations that Apple’s architect proposed, with some [...]

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Apple has produced a promotional card for its series of youth workshops, giving it a stencil motif. The 8-3/4″x2-1/3″ card is on green stock, has a “ruler” at the bottom, and has a stencil cut-out for each of the three workshop subjects: video (camcorder), photography (camera) and music (tambourine). The back of the card describes [...]

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Today’s issue of USA Today says that Verizon Wireless turned down an offer from Apple of exclusive distribution of the upcoming iPhone, because Apple had too many demands: a portion of the monthly fees and control over who could sell the phones. Jim Gerace, a Verizon Wireless v-p, told the newspaper that Apple demanded control [...]

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In the aftermath of the theft of a plexiglass display case containing 42 iPod nanos from the Twenty Ninth Street (Colo.) Apple store, displays at other stores have been modified to secure the 30 pound cases to a table. Boulder police say store employees noticed the display case missing at around 5 p.m. earlier this [...]

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Sources have told Forbes Magazine that Apple has decided not to put a retail store at 21 W. 34th Street in New York City, across from the Empire State Building. According to the sources, Apple believed the store would perform well, but, “had second thoughts about the location’s coolness.” Forbes quoted a long-time retail broker [...]

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Apple Inc. has received a second patent covering the spectacular glass staircases that help make their flagship stores a magnet for visitors. This patent is for a “glass support member,” and focuses on the engineering and manufacture of the laminated glass panels, and the use of titanium inserts to attach the panels together. The 21-page [...]

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The Apple retail stores in the United Kingdom (and now United States) will hold Youth Workshops devoted to iTunes, iPhoto and iMovie. The “Jam, Action, Snap” sessions are for children ages 6 to 13, and are scheduled for three Sundays and three Wednesdays (Sat. & Mon. in the U.S.) starting mid-February through mid-April. There is [...]

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The evidence is was contradictory about whether Apple is adding on to the San Francisco (N. Calif.) retail store. Major construction is underway at 24 Ellis Street, directly behind the existing store, on a single-story, 12,000 square-foot building with a peaked roof. A 4-story building occupied the space around the time the Apple store was [...]

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There’s a large part of any retail operation that is backstage, complexities that are hidden from the customer in order to provide a superior shopping experience. At Apple’s retail stores, there’s the added corporate secrecy intended to maintain the company’s competitive advantage. Now a Web site has popped up to expose some of the backstage [...]

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Apple’s proposed store at 147 Buchanan Street in Glasgow (Scotland) has received approval from the Director of Development and Regeneration Services (DRS), and should be green-lighted by the city planning department during a regular meeting this Tuesday. The flagship-sized store will be located inside a magnificent corner building that dates from 1842. Apple will retain [...]

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The Mall at Millenia (Orlando, Fla.) retail store will close for five full days starting January 22nd to construct a temporary store while renovations are made to the store, which opened in October 2003. The store features wood floors, white Corian display fixtures, a rear POS and right-side Genius Bar. The renovations could include stone [...]

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Apple reported record quarterly revenues and profit for the first fiscal quarter of 2007, hitting $7.1 billion in sales and $1.0 billion in profits. The Retail stores generated $1.1 billion in sales, nearly the same as the holiday quarter of last year, but about double the revenues from the previous three quarters. Retail profit was [...]

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Apple will divert from its recent penchant for placing stores in major metro areas, and locate a new store at the Fashion Fair Mall in Fresno (Calif.), the heart of the state’s agricultural valley. The city’s average household income puts it in the bottom 10 percent among existing Apple store locations. Other economic demographics would [...]

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The traditional black-painted construction barricade has appeared on the second level of the Bentall Centre mall in Kingston (UK). The space was formerly the Lego store, and is in between the Gap and Paperchase stores. The store could open in late spring or early summer.

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The introduction of the new iPhone may be generating excitement and questions at the Apple and Cingular stores, but it didn’t generate any literature or posters at the stores announcing the future product. With four months and 18 days left until June, it may be too early–and entirely unnecessary–to create any hype. The first significant [...]

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The first months of the New Year are always quiet for store openings, even as the Retail team continues to work behind the scenes on future stores. The occasional store will open, however, such as the West Quay (Southampton, UK) store, which was originally intended to open before Christmas. Construction scheduling left the opening date [...]

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Apple’s retail stores will be an important element in selling the new iPhone cellular phone that Steve Jobs just announced at Macworld Expo in San Francisco. The ground-breaking phone will be available in June at Cingular’s 2,100 company-owned stores and kiosks, and at Apple’s 160 stores. The phones will also be available at both companies’ [...]

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If you’re attending Macworld Expo this week in San Francisco, stop by the nearby flagship retail store at Stockton and Market Streets, and attend some of the special events that are scheduled, including a live performance the the band Unwritten Law at 9 p.m. on Wednesday. Of course, if you have wheels, a trip 44 [...]

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