Backstage At An Apple Store

January 21st, 2007

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 operating details of Apple stores, operated anonymously by a part-time employee at an unnamed store. The iWork For Apple site debuted in July 2005 and is sparse right now, but offers to answer site visitors’ questions. [The site was taken down two days after this posting because the owner was concerned with being identified through ISP listings (see the comment #3). Here's the original page.]

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[...] Wow Talk about a spike in traffic. I sent the address of this site to IFO Apple Store thinking that the guy who writes it might find it interesting… the site went from four visitors/day to over a thousand. Wow. [...]

Wow « iWork for Apple January 22, 2007 at 11:12 am

The website is now gone. Probably due to standard Apple intimidation.

a January 23, 2007 at 11:30 am

I did have to pull the site down - the spike in traffic led me to investigate some of the registration information I had used with the hosting company that was hosting the site, and I became less than totally comfortable with the level of anonymity that was protecting me.

I’m looking at options for re-launching. Until then, if you have questions, feel free to email me at iworkforapple AT gmail DOT com.

The most surprising thing about the experience was the amount of negative commenting I received at the site. I heard *nothing* from Apple, other than some lame commenters pretending.

iwork January 24, 2007 at 5:18 pm

“The most suprising thing about the experience was the amount of negative commenting I received at the site. I heard *nothing* from Apple, other than some lame commenters pretending.”

So, why did you take the site down?

“I’m looking at options for re-launching.”

I’m no genius, and I figured out who you were in about 10 minutes. I mean, I was not only doing some basic checking while flipping my channel(s) trying to find a good show to watch, and I mean, all I could find was “Sleepless in Seattle” for christ’s sake. Anyhow, I’m rambling.

Oh, one more thing…

Maybe stick to blogging about Microsoft.

no February 12, 2007 at 11:35 pm