00:00:11 ◼ ► It can see it's like I think you you sent me a heads up maybe exactly a week ago like over the weekend
00:00:23 ◼ ► I'm releasing this thing called the App Store time machine on Monday morning this that the other
00:00:32 ◼ ► And I thought that sounds like an interesting thing and I had like an idea in my mind of how
00:01:04 ◼ ► So tell people for the people who didn't see my link to it or didn't stumble across it anywhere because it was all over
00:01:18 ◼ ► Recreated four different Apple stores at Tyson's Corner Stanford shopping center Fifth Avenue the original store
00:01:25 ◼ ► Not the not the current one and an infinite loop formerly the company store and all four of them are recreated to look
00:01:32 ◼ ► Exactly how they did on their grand opening days down to everything how the other tables are merchandise the graphic panels on the walls
00:01:47 ◼ ► Added a first-person controller so that you can walk around the stores just like you would have
00:02:01 ◼ ► They look different with the exception of the company store at infinite loop. It's it's it's mostly the same yet today
00:02:09 ◼ ► Just obviously different products, but I was never around when the first Apple stores opened
00:02:14 ◼ ► I just wasn't following Apple at all at the time. So this was kind of a way from for me
00:02:25 ◼ ► When when did the Apple retail stores first open? This is one of the I should know I should know this but I'm gonna guess
00:02:40 ◼ ► Write to me or mentioned to me that like actually Tyson's Corner wasn't the first Apple store that it was a Glendale Galleria
00:03:05 ◼ ► It was Glendale Galleria and no matter that it opened a few hours later because it has the the rollout number zero zero one
00:03:22 ◼ ► Feel funny as me John Gruber arguing over pedantic details and saying that somebody's somebody's being too pedantic
00:03:35 ◼ ► It's sort of a photo finish if it's the same day in there in different time zones, but what so what was the year?
00:03:50 ◼ ► Massachusetts outside Boston at the time and the one that was closest to to me and my now wife was in
00:04:11 ◼ ► But I will say it's it's an inner it it's uncanny how much those that they feel like the original stores and
00:04:19 ◼ ► It's like I knew it cuz I've even I wasn't writing daring fireball quite yet. It was a year before I did but I
00:04:40 ◼ ► Like I knew it I remember it and I know that that's one of those things that really dates
00:04:59 ◼ ► Yeah, I've tried to decide should I call it an app? Should I call a game? What do I want to say and I
00:05:06 ◼ ► guess it feels a little bit wrong for me to call it a game because there isn't really a
00:05:11 ◼ ► Strategy element to it and you're essentially you're just walking around the stores, right?
00:05:21 ◼ ► But yeah, it's it's not quite like on what you would normally think of as an app either. Yeah an experience
00:05:31 ◼ ► We had some family over earlier this week staying with us for a couple days here in Philadelphia
00:05:37 ◼ ► And they had some of my young nephews and we took them to some of the museums here in Philadelphia
00:05:49 ◼ ► Like the Franklin Institute here in Philadelphia has lots of stuff like that where you can like oh see what it's like to do blank
00:06:01 ◼ ► And that's exactly what it feels like it's yeah, I guess it's not a game because you don't play there's no score. You don't win
00:06:07 ◼ ► There's no competition, but it's not an app. You don't do it's an experience, but it is amazing and it's so
00:06:18 ◼ ► But just rendered out a video of walking through right because you could do it at your own pace
00:06:26 ◼ ► Right because like I'm sure you've watched the video of Steve Jobs introducing the first Apple store
00:06:34 ◼ ► Tyson's corner there and showing each of the sections, but there's this added dimension when when you are controlling the camera
00:06:44 ◼ ► Mm-hmm. Yeah, like for me I spent an enormous time just sort of looking at the box software
00:06:52 ◼ ► Because I was like it was it was funny. There was so much of this box software and it just the box
00:06:59 ◼ ► Yeah, the box software was was really funny to me when I was researching all the different titles because like there were there were actual
00:07:18 ◼ ► Which I thought was kind of interesting given the context that it was before the App Store and and and really how
00:07:48 ◼ ► Dated it seems that they devoted so much shelf life to something that doesn't even exist anymore
00:07:55 ◼ ► It's not like they choose not to put box software on the shelves. There's there's no such thing
00:08:03 ◼ ► I guess the last ret holdout for box software would be the dedicated game consoles a PlayStation Xbox and
00:08:13 ◼ ► It they couldn't put box software on the shelves if they chose to and it's never existed for the iPhone or iPad, right?
00:08:29 ◼ ► But still even even with me emphasizing how ridiculous it seems that so much of the space in the stores was dedicated to box software
00:08:43 ◼ ► Quicken and the big names of either some of them still big names today or at least the big names of the time
00:08:49 ◼ ► So so for the indie or smaller developers to get in there, it was super super prestigious and I guess good business
00:09:00 ◼ ► the other thing that that was really striking to me in the in the oldest stores was how much space was devoted to
00:09:09 ◼ ► Third-party hardware, especially like camcorders digital cameras the the first stores predated the iPod by a few months
00:09:29 ◼ ► that's that slowly disappeared from the stores and if you walk into an Apple store today and you can you really
00:10:06 ◼ ► Rockingham one opened and there was another one closer to where I worked at bare-bones software outside Boston
00:10:12 ◼ ► Forget the name of the mall it was in but it was funny because they were identical. I mean like if you like
00:10:17 ◼ ► Kidnapped me put a hood over my head and then just put me in one of the two which I was familiar with
00:10:25 ◼ ► I wouldn't be able to tell you which one I was in because they were like identical which is a
00:10:38 ◼ ► Where there was one and people would you'd hear people say do you want to go to the iPod store?
00:10:51 ◼ ► Called the iPod touch the iTouch then called it the iPod touch while the iPod touch was a thing
00:10:58 ◼ ► people called it the iPod store for a long time which was for me as somebody who loved the Mac and knew that the Mac was
00:11:13 ◼ ► and then it made me think like now we're getting into the very early years of during fireball and people used to talk about the
00:11:30 ◼ ► Introducing people to any Apple product for the first time and then they're think hey if the mp3 player was really cool
00:11:39 ◼ ► Maybe I should take a look at one of these Macs and I just remember thinking anecdotally hearing people call it the iPod store
00:11:48 ◼ ► Spitball idea it actually seems like something. I think it's interesting how much influence of the products
00:11:56 ◼ ► Have on what the store design has to be but at the same time how little the stores can really rapidly
00:12:06 ◼ ► so like the original stores were designed before the iPod was announced and I'm guessing that
00:12:12 ◼ ► The majority of the retail team had no idea that it was coming and I would assume that the same was true with the iPhone
00:12:23 ◼ ► All around the world and a product comes out tomorrow and it completely changes your entire business
00:12:36 ◼ ► And I'm oversimplifying it obviously but just to ship a new version of the iPhone for instance when you have
00:12:41 ◼ ► All of these spaces that are leased sometimes you can't like you can't just expand the store tomorrow because now
00:12:49 ◼ ► Your audience wants the new iPhone and before it was just a handful of people in there for max
00:13:02 ◼ ► and again, this is like a statement of the obvious Steve Jobs was a good CEO for Apple, but I do think
00:13:25 ◼ ► Industry change as facts change as tastes change as technology changed, right? So it's not like oh
00:13:33 ◼ ► We've got this master five-year plan and we can't change blank because that's not on the plan. It's okay
00:13:56 ◼ ► We got to get a new operating system built for the future go from classic to Mac OS X built on the next
00:14:07 ◼ ► Let's fix the hardware which was a confusing mess simplify it with the famous four-way grid of
00:14:44 ◼ ► Skeptical about Apple's retail plans was at the time laptops were not the majority selling computers because they were so expensive
00:15:02 ◼ ► 27 pounds right and it's like not exactly I know people that's what people did they go to big-box stores too or
00:15:22 ◼ ► You check out and then you go into the parking lot and back your car up to the entrance and put it in the trunk
00:15:32 ◼ ► Regular indoor malls was weird because it's like well wait if you buy an iMac, you know
00:15:48 ◼ ► Where are you parked what you can do is do this back your car around and there was like a back entrance
00:15:55 ◼ ► But it just didn't seem if all they ever planned to do this is where I'm going is all they ever planned to do was sell
00:16:08 ◼ ► Retail space and malls did not make sense it did the to me the whole idea was things like the iPod
00:16:22 ◼ ► Yeah, it's funny that you mentioned that with with the size of max at the time because there's a there's a video out there from
00:16:28 ◼ ► From grand opening day. It's from the Glendale Galleria opening and and there I don't know like it was produced by
00:16:36 ◼ ► Some marketing team within Apple, but and it's a it's on YouTube. You can find it there
00:16:44 ◼ ► An opening day and they literally have like an industrial dolly from from back of house
00:16:52 ◼ ► Up front in the store when they have loaded on it like a big power mag g4 tower and CRT display
00:16:59 ◼ ► And it's this huge stack. I don't know how you would ever walk it out of this store. It's funny. Yeah, all right
00:17:12 ◼ ► Let me take a break and we'll keep going but first I want to thank our first sponsor and it's my good friends at retool
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00:19:14 ◼ ► You said let's get the technical details out of here you built it in unity you say what does that mean explain that?
00:19:20 ◼ ► So unity is a game engine and it's it's a cross-platform game engine, but this app is just for the Mac
00:19:32 ◼ ► But I honestly I didn't even try because I didn't figure like there was any chance that this would pass app review
00:19:43 ◼ ► Yeah, so I didn't even I didn't even like look at like I would have had to modify the controls obviously for touch and everything
00:19:54 ◼ ► But the the actual modeling of the stars is done in Blender, which is just a totally free
00:20:00 ◼ ► 3d modeling tool and it's extremely powerful and all the texturing was done in Blender and then I brought those
00:20:12 ◼ ► So I just use YouTube tutorials googled stuff until I figured out what I needed to do to
00:20:23 ◼ ► so there are there are different computers within this each store that you can walk up to and
00:20:29 ◼ ► Like there's an iMac you can boot up. There's one computer that's running GarageBand and you can play a track on GarageBand
00:20:38 ◼ ► I wanted to to have in them in the stores, but I just kind of hacked away at it until I figured out what I
00:20:48 ◼ ► The result you can build apps directly in unity. Like you don't have to go through Xcode, but then they're not notarized, right?
00:20:59 ◼ ► System preferences and security and and allow it and it's kind of a mess. It's it's not really well
00:21:17 ◼ ► Then you can you can send unity projects through Xcode and and I had a little bit of help along the way getting
00:21:31 ◼ ► Distribute it without those security warnings. And again, I didn't I didn't try to put it in that in the Mac App Store
00:21:36 ◼ ► Cuz I didn't figure it would ever get approved. Well, you should try it. I mean at the very least so what I would say is
00:21:45 ◼ ► iOS of fine it because that would be a lot of work, but you should at least submit the Mac
00:21:51 ◼ ► I mean because you've got the Mac version right? So why not? I don't know I get what you're saying
00:21:56 ◼ ► No, it's so but this project is so off the wall like in terms of like I I it's it's unlike anything
00:22:08 ◼ ► Joe random app just to pull out any random app out of the App Store and you put an Apple logo in your app
00:22:18 ◼ ► It's gonna get flagged and it'd be like you can't you can't put the Apple logo in your app
00:22:21 ◼ ► You've got the Apple logo in your app because as you enter an Apple retail store one one of the things that hasn't changed is
00:22:29 ◼ ► The only signage I believe right it's it's like the only signage they've ever had at any Apple retail store is
00:22:40 ◼ ► It's one of the cool things that people don't think about but it's like they've never said Apple
00:23:00 ◼ ► So if you in Chicago, if you go to Apple Lincoln Park, which is on the north side of Chicago
00:23:23 ◼ ► There's one strip of acrylic in there. It says Apple Store. It's the it's set in Apple Garamond and
00:23:31 ◼ ► I don't I actually I have no idea why that sign exists because that store opened I think in 2010 and I
00:23:49 ◼ ► I can think of that is kind of weird, but it's still I'm gonna say though that doesn't really count as signage on the store
00:24:03 ◼ ► Like it makes me think that it was somebody not involved with Apple who thought they were being helpful and nobody at Apple ever
00:24:10 ◼ ► Noticed and it'd be funny if somebody listening to the show now is like what the hell are they talking about looks into it?
00:24:16 ◼ ► Oh my god, get that out of here. But yeah 2010 was clearly well into the myriad era of Apple
00:24:29 ◼ ► I say you've got to try submitting it to the App Store and see at the Mac App Store and see what happens because the Apple
00:24:36 ◼ ► Logo alone might be the thing and it's just somebody who doesn't even like who knows I have no idea
00:24:44 ◼ ► What what sort of mindset they have but if it's just somebody who doesn't even look at it and think hey, this is amazing
00:24:56 ◼ ► There's an Apple logo flagged but I could see it also going all the way to every single bit of this is Apple's intellectual property
00:25:04 ◼ ► Right, but you've got the app right? All you really have to do the only effort it would take is these
00:25:10 ◼ ► Submission to the Mac App Store. I don't know I say you try it. Yeah, I mean I could certainly try it
00:25:20 ◼ ► It's one of those things where feeling right is more important than technically being right. I think you nailed it the lighting Oh seems
00:25:35 ◼ ► Again, I like when I linked to it on daring fireball. I mentioned to people here's the basic idea
00:25:53 ◼ ► I'm not a super minecraft my son used to play but it doesn't seem to me like there's extensive lighting options in Minecraft
00:26:20 ◼ ► There's kind of two tricks that play and one is I probably didn't do it in the way that a real game developer would
00:26:29 ◼ ► Dynamic lighting and shadows in the game. So everything is all baked in and all the textures have the shadows
00:26:39 ◼ ► So the lighting in the scene is all coming from Plunder where I modeled it and and that way I had
00:27:09 ◼ ► It it it's pointed a certain angle into the display so that it lights up the products on the shelves and that's all stuff
00:27:30 ◼ ► That same control in unity and it made it a lot. It made it easier for me to to render the
00:27:44 ◼ ► Curvature of like the power mag g4 with with a lot higher detail because I wasn't spending CPUs cycles on lighting
00:28:08 ◼ ► It was more of a I forget what they called it like a slate blue. Yeah, I think I think they called it graphite me
00:28:14 ◼ ► Oh, that's right. Yeah graphite. Yeah, I'm not positive. Nope. Yep, as soon as you said it, it was definitely called graphite, which was
00:28:24 ◼ ► Then I would think the word graphite implies. But anyway, that's what they called it and you nailed it. It looks right
00:28:46 ◼ ► Which is sort of the it's the dream of the the cube which is the small footprint thing that you could put on your desk
00:29:05 ◼ ► Device and I know I'd say that knowing that Apple has spent actually the last few years
00:29:12 ◼ ► Professionals actually use and love Mac minis, but to me the Mac studio is more in spirit. But yeah, that was definitely it
00:29:28 ◼ ► Looks back and says one of Apple's rare failures, but there it is in the Museum of Modern Art. I just love that
00:29:35 ◼ ► Here's this thing universally hailed as a failure. Yeah, and it's in the Museum of Modern Art
00:29:47 ◼ ► Time machine in the there's like an intro video loop that plays when you boot the app and I use the the g4 cube to
00:29:55 ◼ ► Kind of represent the time machine that your engine into I tried to create like a backstory so that you
00:30:09 ◼ ► Gameplay element, but I wanted there to be context to the time machine and like why does the entire UI look like?
00:30:51 ◼ ► was originally going to just have the Tysons corner model and then and it kind of just it got out of hand and I added
00:30:58 ◼ ► Three more stores. So so that's why that's why I used the aqua interface because it matched the air of the store
00:31:05 ◼ ► But then when when I started adding more stores, I'm like, well, I really need a reason for this interface
00:31:50 ◼ ► What if he instead of Jerry rigging a DeLorean? What if he Jerry rigged g4 Mac cube to take you back?
00:32:03 ◼ ► At this and I just love and then it got out of hand because that is it just seems so obvious to me that that's what?
00:32:21 ◼ ► This is not enough I cuz I have questions and I started asking them and then I thought you know
00:32:29 ◼ ► Take for you take forever an email and then it's not out there for the world. But like what did you do?
00:32:34 ◼ ► This is one of the first questions I asked you by email, but I gotta ask again. What did you do to get?
00:32:55 ◼ ► All right, you say that I I can't imagine but that does not seem like the obvious answer
00:33:08 ◼ ► right, I searched for like mall lease plans because sometimes like even if Apple's not in the same spot in the mall like they'll have
00:33:17 ◼ ► The the footprint of the store like the square footage and then I could work from there. I looked well, there are some
00:33:48 ◼ ► kind of figure out the rest of the store from and and I know like the exact dimensions of a standard Apple store table like the
00:34:00 ◼ ► Known dimensions and then like work backwards from there and and like there are a couple
00:34:06 ◼ ► there are a couple of published numbers out there like if you go to I believe when the when the cube opened like there was a
00:34:17 ◼ ► I think like maybe one of the engineering firms that Apple worked with like published a summary of like the work they did and
00:34:29 ◼ ► That's the Fifth Avenue New York iconic Apple store. Not the g4 cube the the right. Yes up on the Fifth Avenue
00:35:03 ◼ ► recreation of Bergdorf Bergdorf Goodman across the street, right and I need the GM building and all that
00:35:17 ◼ ► How you got into this and maybe how you got some figures for some of these things like the details of certain panels or the tables
00:35:26 ◼ ► For at least for 9 to 5 Mac on the Apple retail beat. Maybe you've written elsewhere. I
00:35:37 ◼ ► So you have sources in retail and and as I like to call them little birdies who maybe have given you information
00:36:05 ◼ ► I have a album in photos on my phone that has pictures from from all the store visits that I've
00:36:17 ◼ ► There's there are I'm gonna just check right now. Let's see the Apple store album in photos has
00:36:36 ◼ ► I had this like huge collection of assets for things like what what is the material of the floors?
00:36:42 ◼ ► What what type of wood is there and I was able to build these textures for 3d modeling based on this this huge
00:36:51 ◼ ► All right, let me take another break here and think our next sponsor is our good friends at
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00:39:19 ◼ ► That's memberful.com slash talk-show and you can get started. How long how long did you spend working on this project Michael?
00:39:26 ◼ ► Do you want and if you would prefer not to answer that question, you can just say pass so
00:39:35 ◼ ► So this project actually began with a smaller project I did while I was at 9 to 5 Mac and that was for the 20th
00:39:56 ◼ ► The the products in the store were modeled in a lot less detail the textures were a lot lower resolution and I made it a
00:40:07 ◼ ► And I published that when I published a big feature article about 20 years of Apple retail stores
00:40:15 ◼ ► so it was like a little desktop model just just like you would take like a model of like a
00:40:26 ◼ ► Like you could just drop this down onto your desk and look down into it like like a little Lego house or something like that
00:40:53 ◼ ► I just I just couldn't make it something that you could view that large and it still had an acceptable
00:41:08 ◼ ► So the the actual walls of your room would would clip into the model because it's obviously
00:41:14 ◼ ► Bigger than any room you'd be in so so I kind of had this idea in the back of my head and that so that was
00:41:27 ◼ ► Put in the work on this project and I took the the model I had made of Tyson's Corner and I kind of tore it down
00:41:46 ◼ ► the USDZ file like you had to be able to look down into it so there was no ceiling on the store and and
00:41:56 ◼ ► First modeling and then bringing into unity making sure that it worked and then I started on the next door and that so that took from
00:42:13 ◼ ► The thing I love about it and and I don't know. I don't know why it's it's happening now. It's maybe it's me
00:42:37 ◼ ► the earlier years of the internet and just thinking like man people used to just build cool things or build fun things and
00:42:51 ◼ ► Not that no one does it but it's like it just doesn't seem like that's where people spend their time people just get on Twitter and
00:43:00 ◼ ► Argue and post links to fun things and that's it as opposed to registering their own domain name and
00:43:09 ◼ ► Whoa, I where the hell did that idea come from putting it up on the web sharing it or making something else
00:43:16 ◼ ► If it doesn't make sense as a website make something that people can download and it's not a business idea
00:43:40 ◼ ► I'm just imagining in your brain. You're like I would like to build this and then I you're you're thinking
00:43:46 ◼ ► I just I need to build this right it had to be a moment where you're just like I have to do this
00:43:56 ◼ ► Because like I wanted to see what these stores were like I've been so fascinated by by Apple retail stores
00:44:10 ◼ ► but it doesn't look anything like it did in 2001 and it's it's something like I can just never get back to without like just
00:44:35 ◼ ► Favorite iPod and and just kind of build to put yourself back in that moment in that place in time
00:44:58 ◼ ► I'm an acquaintance at least of John August who's who's a pretty pretty to say the least successful screenwriter and
00:45:21 ◼ ► There if you could like erase from his memory one of the books he's written and then give him a copy of it
00:45:28 ◼ ► He'd be like this book is amazing. This is fantastic, right? It's it's that's what creative people do
00:45:44 ◼ ► So now you've got these models and you can ex you Michael Stieber can experience these stores
00:45:53 ◼ ► when you just plop this link in an email to me over the weekend and it came as a total surprise and just
00:46:00 ◼ ► Lit up the parts of my brain that shoot good feelings and chemicals through my body like this is so much fun
00:46:09 ◼ ► right, like you just had to see this real and and then the other thing too is there's that moment where like you you
00:46:16 ◼ ► But you you underplayed your skills you say you're not a developer and maybe you don't write code
00:46:21 ◼ ► But obviously you're talented with Blender and you self-taught yourself with unity and such there had it's that moment
00:46:28 ◼ ► When you realize when you got good enough like well, let me watch some YouTube videos see how to do this
00:46:33 ◼ ► Where do you're like? Oh, okay. I have I could I could do this right like I I could do this
00:46:41 ◼ ► Yeah, it's it's kind of a thing that just like one thing builds on the next and it started from
00:46:53 ◼ ► if you go on like I go on flicker a lot to find to find photos of old stores because people
00:46:59 ◼ ► used to always big albums from star openings and things like that and the photos are always like a 640 by 480 like
00:47:20 ◼ ► box on the shelf and and and it's the only happens to be like the only photo of this shelf that was
00:47:41 ◼ ► It's not like flicker flicker is still an active photo sharing service. It is it's I'm glad it's still around
00:47:54 ◼ ► Don't really I don't know I was gonna say don't really have I don't have at all any kind of photo gallery
00:48:12 ◼ ► Wanted to publish way more photos than I usually do in a review of an iPhone at during fireball
00:48:19 ◼ ► There's a bunch of articles over the years where I've done that so glad that they're still around a happy paying customer
00:48:31 ◼ ► Completely coincides with the era of your research. So that's it's so great that flicker still around for that, right?
00:48:40 ◼ ► and and I kind of I felt this this urgency when I was doing my research because a lot of the accounts what I would just
00:49:01 ◼ ► So like and I have no idea how many photos like I missed that would have made this process so much easier
00:49:17 ◼ ► Specific time that I think it's kind of sad that were that we're losing slowly when I was researching
00:49:29 ◼ ► Instagram era people weren't really using flicker. It was actually more difficult to find
00:49:45 ◼ ► Like it's impossible to go back and find anything on Instagram. You can't search by date the people
00:49:57 ◼ ► You've never been able to upload like the the actual JPEG file from your phone. It's always a compressed version. So
00:50:15 ◼ ► Yeah, it's funny because and this is total serendipity because I just posted a link and it's been a week of
00:50:27 ◼ ► Jumping the shark which has been a long slow boiling frog ever since Facebook acquired it when it was indie
00:50:41 ◼ ► We're just gonna destroy the Instagram that was and build something turn it into a tick-tock clone or whatever
00:50:52 ◼ ► Everybody's fondest memories where it was just a simple timeline of sharing from people. It was never meant for
00:51:02 ◼ ► Archive right but you could do back in the day is if you knew who took the photo like if if it was
00:51:16 ◼ ► store opening on his on his Instagram then you could go to Jason sells Instagram account and
00:51:22 ◼ ► Click on his profile and then there'd be a list of all the things that he's posted and you could just scroll to the bottom
00:51:28 ◼ ► And and get there but like the way Instagram's evolved. Yeah, it's like it's it's they they have no interest in it
00:51:36 ◼ ► So even though Instagram is still around, you know to say the least it was never meant for that
00:51:42 ◼ ► You mentioned 640 by 4a and in sort of bemoaning it but the back in the back when people were posting it that seemed big enough
00:51:53 ◼ ► There was you're probably too young but like the original IBM PCs in the early 80s in the DOS era had a limit of exactly
00:52:03 ◼ ► Okay, it was like a technical limit. It was really bizarre. I didn't even I never really encountered it
00:52:13 ◼ ► Somebody it was at a like a trade show or something and they were like, hey, what about this technical limit?
00:52:19 ◼ ► It's only 640 kilobytes of RAM and it was like I'm like it wasn't just a limit in the hardware
00:52:25 ◼ ► So next year there was no way to make a computer with more RAM and supposedly Bill Gates said
00:52:30 ◼ ► 640 kilobytes of RAM ought to be enough for anybody and it's a super famous quote, but apparently and again, I'm promised everybody
00:52:36 ◼ ► I'm doing it right now gonna put it in the show notes. He claims he never said it. It's apocryphal
00:52:43 ◼ ► It's one of the sad things in the world all the best quotes, you know of apparently the person you think said it didn't say him
00:52:55 ◼ ► Turns out nope when you're trying to build a retina level full-screen high quality recreation of these stores
00:53:06 ◼ ► Yeah, and that great what else what else did you do any other research notes that that are worth worth a story?
00:53:19 ◼ ► really sell the the realism of the models and and they were things that I really was only able to
00:53:25 ◼ ► To track down because I've been paying so close attention to to how the retail store design is evolved
00:53:37 ◼ ► Drawers of iPhone cases that you can open the the wooden drawers and in inside each each iPhone case and its packaging is
00:53:45 ◼ ► separated by a little wooden divider and that's that's how they're all organized in the drawer, but
00:53:52 ◼ ► Infinite loop is one of the only stores in the world that actually has a drawer with wooden dividers in it
00:54:01 ◼ ► If you go to any other Apple store with it with the new restore design that has a drawer
00:54:10 ◼ ► What you'll find is like little brass dividers between each case and they look like like DDR2
00:54:28 ◼ ► Almost since the beginning but like the very first few stores with that design used just wooden dividers between the cases
00:54:51 ◼ ► It's just enough time is what I say as the person who can identify the difference between
00:54:57 ◼ ► Ariel and Helvetica in the in a snap of a finger. No, that's the sort of thing. That's why this
00:55:34 ◼ ► That's been built into the Mac since probably around the time of these stores that you're talking about
00:55:52 ◼ ► And I also thought that the Apple store time machine like that was way too long for an app name
00:56:10 ◼ ► But it's it's very different and and the shop different is also a slogan that Apple used
00:56:52 ◼ ► That's it's that's great. I love it. But I do remember I shouldn't say that I forget the name what I remember to shop
00:57:07 ◼ ► It's like all I need is a couple of letters of the at the beginning. So it's like command space SHOP shop
00:57:12 ◼ ► Return but I do think I think the time machine thing is funny because I kept typing time machine and it was a hit and say
00:57:21 ◼ ► Did though you mentioned building a our kit model type thing and I saw on Twitter and it's
00:57:34 ◼ ► But it's like lots and lots of people on Twitter are trying it and then they're like, oh, this would be cool. Is it a AR?
00:58:24 ◼ ► Just just like incredibly detailed like you can move every product in the store things like that
00:58:34 ◼ ► Type experience. I just hope that if there is a future product like that that this is something
00:58:40 ◼ ► I can bring over because I think it would be really cool, you know in a more immersive setting. I do too
00:58:59 ◼ ► Was exactly the right thing to do and even taking the App Store would they approve it aside and the whole?
00:59:06 ◼ ► Again, I laugh I was chuckling there, but I'm not the one who might have wasted seven months of effort, right?
00:59:18 ◼ ► it it exemplifies though your project exemplifies the sort of project or problems with the
00:59:35 ◼ ► Then give it to Apple and then you find out if they're going to allow it unless your project is something that you know is
00:59:45 ◼ ► but if you're if you have the idea for a project and you're yours is to me a perfect example of
00:59:52 ◼ ► Hmm. I could definitely see Apple saying no and and maybe no on something as simple as you cannot have the Apple logo
01:00:07 ◼ ► And turned it into a circle or something instead then you could submit it or maybe they would
01:00:13 ◼ ► Put the kibosh on the whole thing because it's a reproduction of their intellectual property these stores
01:00:32 ◼ ► Future direction of hopefully maybe moving it towards the goggles would be awesome and maybe now that it's out and
01:00:39 ◼ ► You've got this thing and you're you've gotten some attention for it. Maybe you could figure out a channel to
01:00:52 ◼ ► They think we think they might call the the the platform before you actually spend the gobs and gobs of hours doing it
01:00:59 ◼ ► Or something like that. All right, let me take one more break here and thank our next sponsor
01:01:04 ◼ ► and then what I want to do when we come back is talk to you about Apple retail itself and get your thoughts on on
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01:04:52 ◼ ► I spent the most time in was the cube as you called it the Fifth Avenue store in New York
01:05:12 ◼ ► Which you have which is which is the name of the one that's the mini store in your in your in your app
01:05:25 ◼ ► Retail spots that are smaller footprint than the original concept of the Apple store and that was an interesting direction for Apple's expansion
01:05:33 ◼ ► The thing that I don't think anybody would have anticipated because so many people when they started were thinking like this is doomed
01:05:39 ◼ ► None of these computer companies that that make you try to expand into consumer retail ever have any success
01:05:56 ◼ ► Well, maybe they have to a couple flagships in New York, but the Fifth Avenue one is clearly iconic
01:06:11 ◼ ► Wise right for I mean, I know I'll bet because it's so iconic and everybody so many people go to New York
01:06:57 ◼ ► Skyscrapers along Fifth Avenue and then there's just a hole in the ground when people aren't
01:07:19 ◼ ► shopping experience that's underground and to have an underground store that people will get to that they would notice
01:07:27 ◼ ► From the ground. It's not like the big Fifth Avenue Apple store is like when you go to a
01:07:35 ◼ ► Train station and you're underground and there's a Dunkin Donuts and a newsstand where you can buy
01:07:41 ◼ ► Magazines and stuff which makes sense for them to be underground because they're there to get the consumers as they walk to catch train
01:07:51 ◼ ► Period and they solved that how do people know where it is from the ground with the cube which serves?
01:08:08 ◼ ► I guess functionally it does let sunlight in because it's glass and you can see through it
01:08:21 ◼ ► Architectural marvel glass cube above ground and people will come down a very, you know
01:08:30 ◼ ► Obviously talked about the cube, but the other thing that people talked about an apple including Apple was the staircase which yes
01:08:37 ◼ ► We is also made of glass. Is it still the original staircase? I don't even I'm not quite sure
01:08:54 ◼ ► Yeah, the the Fifth Avenue store is like I think the term is a ship of Theseus. That's right
01:09:02 ◼ ► So like nothing from the original store from from 2006 which really isn't that long ago. There is nothing left
01:09:10 ◼ ► It's it's an entirely new space and and really the the cube was completely dismantled and replaced in
01:09:34 ◼ ► Former, I can't remember the name of the the the toy store. That was it FAO Schwartz. Yes
01:09:44 ◼ ► for for like over two and a half years while that that while the new store was built and they literally started over so they
01:09:59 ◼ ► but I don't know how many feet but it's it's much taller inside now than it used to be and
01:10:07 ◼ ► But there's literally nothing left when they rebuilt the cube the new staircase when you walk down
01:10:23 ◼ ► It's it's almost like being in some type of like funhouse where you just you look all around and you see your own reflection on
01:10:32 ◼ ► polished stainless steel - so it's just it's this kind of like dazzling experience as you walk down the
01:11:00 ◼ ► to look past that because the the cube was so spectacular and and when they rebuilt it the
01:11:09 ◼ ► Matches the cube in in magnitude now. Hmm. Yeah, that's interesting that they lowered the floor
01:11:15 ◼ ► I did not know that because like I said, I haven't been back but that was one of the things was that
01:11:23 ◼ ► Cool and like anything really worth seeing in person pictures and videos don't do it justice you go there and you see it
01:11:35 ◼ ► Then you go down the stairs and then you're in the store and it's sort of like this is a little a it was a little
01:11:42 ◼ ► Sort of like that's just sort of a bigger square footage regular Apple store, but the the low ceilings were
01:11:50 ◼ ► Not great, it's actually sort of a downgrade from a regular Apple store low ceilings are not generally regarded as
01:11:58 ◼ ► luxurious but you knew but on the other hand you knew you were underground and so it just sort of was like it was like
01:12:06 ◼ ► Like if you went to a regular mall and the ceilings were that low you'd be like what the hell is going on here
01:12:11 ◼ ► This is weird. Whereas you know, it was totally acceptable knowing you were underground
01:12:17 ◼ ► In addition to the problem of solving. Well, we've got underground space. How do we make a nice store is?
01:12:26 ◼ ► but the other extra tough thing for Apple is the competitive nature of the company and the pride of
01:12:57 ◼ ► Any of these other brands Gucci or whoever else is nearby on Fifth Avenue? No, not even at all
01:13:04 ◼ ► But you know, they want to hold their own right and it turns out they did more than hold their own
01:13:13 ◼ ► Yeah, and and what I what I think is really fascinating about the cube is that it certainly is the most
01:13:25 ◼ ► Steve Jobs was was directly involved and there's this kind of story about about how it came to be and and it
01:13:35 ◼ ► the that early era of the iPhone when there were huge lines outside the store and it got a lot of
01:13:41 ◼ ► Attention with the the press cameras and things like that, but in terms of like architecture and magnitude of stores
01:13:49 ◼ ► New stores that have been built over the last five years or so that I would say like really surpass
01:14:00 ◼ ► Their physical placement like for instance Apple Marina Bay Sands, which is in Singapore
01:14:16 ◼ ► You can just tell from the photos like this is this is at another level and and it's certainly like it's it's not like
01:14:24 ◼ ► It's a hidden project or anything like that, but I don't think anything has been able to
01:14:33 ◼ ► Yeah, because and a lot of the other flagships are built into historic buildings in yes
01:14:42 ◼ ► I mean you I should ask you which some of the ones are and it's a great thing Apple does is take
01:15:12 ◼ ► Totally mass-market. It is for everybody. Everybody is welcome and feels welcome to go into the store and you get to go into a
01:15:33 ◼ ► Right and and I think the the historic preservation projects that Apple does it's it's really kind of it's really kind of unfortunate how
01:15:49 ◼ ► Detail that they go into into restoring these historic buildings, but I know like outside of the Apple community
01:16:03 ◼ ► Like there's a lot of criticism about those projects that people think that Apple just kind of went in took over
01:16:10 ◼ ► Some great historic space and now it's a cell phone shop and they ruined a historic building
01:16:17 ◼ ► and so it's it's kind of a tough situation and and I think I think people have because stores like the
01:16:29 ◼ ► What every Apple store is like so they think like Apple gutted this historic theater and now it's a glass box
01:16:39 ◼ ► Perception problem that they've really struggled to overcome especially as they move into more historic buildings
01:17:06 ◼ ► Haters and it's so cynical because they act as though the critics of these things act as though
01:17:27 ◼ ► loved to come and filled the filled this place for the last hundred years and was still thriving and
01:17:56 ◼ ► Now they don't it. They don't have any books from the library and that that doesn't happen. That's not what Apple is doing
01:18:14 ◼ ► But Apple's not taking over places that were thriving in their original use and buying them out because they have more money
01:18:27 ◼ ► You know that their glory years were in the past and I don't so I don't know what the critics think
01:18:33 ◼ ► Should happen to these buildings. It's it's it's like a wishful thinking of a utopia where collectively
01:18:46 ◼ ► For what purpose that people would actually enjoy? I don't know. It's it's just sort of utopian
01:18:53 ◼ ► Footstomping of I don't know some but something something but it should just be for the public good and shouldn't be for selling consumer products
01:19:02 ◼ ► Yeah, it's it's really kind of remarkable when when the Tower Theater store was just a rumor. I happened to be in
01:19:13 ◼ ► I'm gonna stop over and see what that what that building looks like, but I remember walking walking around
01:19:19 ◼ ► On the sidewalk in front of the store and it's it was falling apart. I mean it was completely closed
01:19:37 ◼ ► Then when I came back for the opening, I remember rounding the corner and it was like nine o'clock at night
01:20:22 ◼ ► So I think once you if you look past the surface level and like it makes an easy like Twitter post like to just
01:20:29 ◼ ► Say like oh look here was this beautiful building and somebody posts the photo of how it looked in
01:20:35 ◼ ► 1920 and then here's what Apple did to it. But but once you once you really look beyond the surface that
01:21:49 ◼ ► I'm sure that lots and lots of people out there who listen to the show have some favorite things that they
01:22:00 ◼ ► And that's one of the things I love about some of the photos in the designed by Apple in California coffee table book
01:22:10 ◼ ► Original iPhone that's that belonged to Evans hanky who's now in charge of design at Apple
01:22:16 ◼ ► Her iPhone her original aluminum backed iPhone and she used it of seemingly maybe didn't upgrade
01:22:30 ◼ ► Gloated to me is the most beautiful picture in that whole book of beautiful objects because to me an iPhone that is all
01:22:53 ◼ ► so taking a historic building that was sad if it had a personality and now has been restored and and is
01:23:21 ◼ ► Some of their favorite things that they own what what better purpose is there for a building it to me?
01:23:29 ◼ ► You know, there's obviously problems with capitalism. There's problems with everything and it's just the
01:23:36 ◼ ► Worst system ever invented except for all the other ones, right but it's like the idea that some people have that
01:23:42 ◼ ► The entirety of capitalism is rotten to the core and a capitalist intent for these historic buildings is inherently wrong is to me
01:23:52 ◼ ► Go bitch about it on your website and we'll ignore you in the meantime. We're gonna go enjoy this very nice store
01:24:03 ◼ ► And I think that Apple especially in the last couple of years. They've really put some touches in these historic stores that
01:24:29 ◼ ► Samples on the walls of different architecture elements from the store and they show how they restored each element
01:24:50 ◼ ► Did whatever to peel back the layers of paint and fix it up and they show you like this progression
01:24:56 ◼ ► So you can really really get a feel for for how much detail went into every piece of it
01:25:08 ◼ ► A lot of the critics to speak of it as though Apple came in and bulldozed these buildings and then built a cookie cutter
01:25:17 ◼ ► Which when in fact they do the opposite like you just emphasized that when they come into the historic buildings
01:25:22 ◼ ► They each one is unique. Each one is a unique project and they try to honor the history and preserve
01:25:31 ◼ ► Document the history and do it with the most respect that they possibly can and I think that's awesome
01:25:38 ◼ ► I think that it is it's the opposite. It's not like well, it's like the downside to apples expansion into retail to me
01:25:54 ◼ ► yeah, I've watched some of the like City Council meetings where Apple has to present these projects and
01:26:04 ◼ ► representative from the Apple real estate team and usually maybe someone from Foster and Partners there and I've seen
01:26:14 ◼ ► Like they go out of their way to emphasize that because I think even at the city level that they face a little bit of pushback
01:26:26 ◼ ► interest in Apple as a whole and the Apple way of doing things is that it's really the only thing
01:26:33 ◼ ► Apple the modern Apple does and I've always defined modern Apple is the post Steve Jobs
01:26:46 ◼ ► They're actually it's it's part of the culture of the company is not to dwell on the past to there's a Steve Jobs quote
01:26:58 ◼ ► What you should do is take a moment to enjoy it and then move on and make another great thing
01:27:03 ◼ ► You know and there's there's exceptions to that. They've brought back some of the six color Apple logo stuff
01:27:09 ◼ ► They've made some wallpapers for phones that have sort of a callback to that era and the logo and I think it helps too
01:27:26 ◼ ► equity obviously literally from Tim Cook on downward but that the classic six color logo draws
01:27:38 ◼ ► Type support so they do that. There's actually a new ad campaign. I just noticed on billboards here in Philly for AirPods
01:28:08 ◼ ► But the architecture is the one thing where they're there. They're explicitly looking back
01:28:16 ◼ ► You know when thinking about Apple retail in general apples mentioned it before in keynotes that they
01:28:22 ◼ ► Think about the stores as the largest product they make and it's I think it's easy to dismiss that as like
01:28:38 ◼ ► just like the next iPhone and everyone builds on the last and each one a lot of people think that all Apple stores look the
01:28:50 ◼ ► That much different than the iPhone 13 like yes and no right if you if you know what you're looking for
01:29:25 ◼ ► Well said, all right, let me take one last break here and thank our fourth and final sponsors are good friends at Squarespace
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01:32:11 ◼ ► Sad is like when Microsoft launched their retail stores and they're very Apple store like often
01:32:22 ◼ ► because one of the things Apple one of the little things Apple is good at is figuring out where to put stores and
01:32:28 ◼ ► Then they'd build these stores that were not ripoffs. I wouldn't say they're ripoffs, but the
01:32:35 ◼ ► Clear low that use glass have these tables let people just play on the computers without a hard sell
01:32:46 ◼ ► Log in and check their Gmail on the computer like they're not going to get bugged by a sales
01:32:51 ◼ ► Associate and then you go through them all and the Apple store is sort of like packed and then you look and there's the Microsoft
01:33:05 ◼ ► Microsoft store time machine but wanted to come in and take some photos, but they really don't want people in the photos
01:33:13 ◼ ► Any time of the day, I'm curious what you think about that like what and I I it's it there's something different
01:33:27 ◼ ► Stores that are so popular as Apple right Google has some pop-up stores, but you know who else could do it?
01:33:46 ◼ ► Knocked them back and I think the only ones that they have left open are like a couple of their flagship stores
01:33:53 ◼ ► even though it's really I think there's there's two parts to it and I think number one is
01:34:09 ◼ ► There were if it was literally just the Genius Bar and there were no products to look at
01:34:14 ◼ ► The stores would still be packed every day of the week all hours a line of people out front
01:34:25 ◼ ► there's always somebody that needs to get their iPhone battery replaced and and I think that
01:34:31 ◼ ► You just don't see that with with other brands like Microsoft and maybe it's because that they don't offer
01:34:38 ◼ ► the same support experience honestly, I I couldn't tell you what what it would be like to get your
01:34:52 ◼ ► Attracted to the architecture of the Apple Store, right? So even though them like a Microsoft Store or Google Store
01:35:01 ◼ ► Is distinct in in its own regard like the the design of the Apple Store is so eye-catching in a mall
01:35:29 ◼ ► But it's the Apple Store's role and and what it clarified is to me really fascinating here in
01:35:41 ◼ ► encyclopedic your knowledge of Apple's retail stores are but Philadelphia actually if you if you chart it on an xy axis
01:35:55 ◼ ► Philadelphia's some sort of outlier by far the biggest story that city that was the last to get an Apple Store
01:36:14 ◼ ► It's the Walnut Street store here in Philadelphia and I just happens to be pretty close to where I live
01:36:36 ◼ ► District in downtown Philadelphia Center City we call it and I I think what happened is that they just were
01:36:44 ◼ ► Waiting for something to open that fit what they thought their needs were and it was a game
01:36:54 ◼ ► Something would close and I would think that that could be an Apple Store and then I'd wonder if that would be it
01:37:19 ◼ ► Market for another one. I guess I could be surprised if they opened another one in this in this city limits
01:37:25 ◼ ► But yeah, I've I've looked around I I'm not sure where they would put another one in Philadelphia
01:37:33 ◼ ► so like if you if you look at the malls that some of the earliest Apple stores went into I think like
01:37:40 ◼ ► They have these properties there now and they're committed to maintaining them in most cases unless like the mall is is dying
01:37:48 ◼ ► But I just can't imagine them ever opening a store in some of the malls that they're in now
01:37:55 ◼ ► Compared to compared to other countries like the US is fairly saturated with Apple stores
01:38:03 ◼ ► Like if you consider how few there are even in China compared to how many people there are there? So yeah
01:38:13 ◼ ► It's they they'll choose and they'll wait as long as they need to to find the perfect property
01:38:20 ◼ ► Yeah, the other thing with Philadelphia is that in the suburbs? There's the king of Prussia Mall in Pennsylvania, which is like 15 miles
01:38:27 ◼ ► West but it's like I often tell people it's like the longest it depending on the time of day and the traffic
01:38:37 ◼ ► If there's a car accident, it is the longest one one accident. It's the longest 15 miles you'll ever drive
01:38:43 ◼ ► But if there's no traffic you could go there as you could drive as fast as you want and then on the other side of the
01:38:51 ◼ ► Which is can be depending where you are in Center City you can get there in like 10 minutes in a car
01:39:01 ◼ ► It was was is a they've since moved to a new spot that the king of Prussia Mall is huge
01:39:26 ◼ ► Come back and it was one of the first doors on that stretch when they couldn't serve people
01:39:34 ◼ ► Indoors because of indoor restrictions for kovat they set up a nice tent and they took it down every night to shade people from
01:39:55 ◼ ► Storefront, but because it gets the Sun and everybody had to be outside they put up like a nice tent
01:40:01 ◼ ► So people weren't having the Sun beat down on them. They had cold water for everybody waiting in line
01:40:06 ◼ ► And I'd walk past and you'd hear just a snippet of conversation and it's exactly what you think
01:40:11 ◼ ► They dropped their phone and now it doesn't work. The screen doesn't even turn on and or something like that people need help
01:40:19 ◼ ► I I don't see given the pandemic restrictions and and being respectful of their the employees who work there
01:40:26 ◼ ► I don't see how they could have been open more and and it was really an interesting thing
01:40:31 ◼ ► As all of this retail that the most thriving area of retail in my hometown was all shut down
01:40:44 ◼ ► I think it was a police car was right you couldn't if you were making a move Michael Bay were directing a movie
01:40:53 ◼ ► Right in front of the Apple Store that somebody threw a Molotov cocktail into and it burned out the police car
01:40:59 ◼ ► right in front of the Apple Store, you know, and now the glass got smashed and they covered it up and
01:41:08 ◼ ► It might even be on my Instagram again another callback to earlier in the show that you know
01:41:41 ◼ ► I mean if you want to be that cynical go ahead, but I don't know it meant something here in Philadelphia
01:41:46 ◼ ► It really did. I think that the the pandemic was a big reset for for Apple's retail strategy
01:42:08 ◼ ► whatever the store plans were going forward had to change and I think that their priorities had to shift and
01:42:16 ◼ ► in terms of like new stores what what the existing stores are going to offer for services and
01:42:24 ◼ ► and I think that new strategy is going to take a few years to really show itself just because of the fact that
01:42:32 ◼ ► Physical real estate only can change so fast and they can only roll out things to stores so fast
01:42:39 ◼ ► But I think like for instance like Apple pickup is one of the biggest changes since the pandemic
01:42:56 ◼ ► there will be like drawers in the wall that where they're storing customer orders sometimes like
01:43:03 ◼ ► It has direct access to the backstage area and they've carved out these sections in new stores just for online
01:43:14 ◼ ► they've like cleared off a product table where they would have had iPhones before and they have a little easel there and
01:43:24 ◼ ► And I think that's one of the largest changes to the store format in quite a few years. It's
01:43:41 ◼ ► more important as more and more people are buying online and I think as much as Apple likes to think of its stores as
01:44:00 ◼ ► And I don't think I don't know for a fact, but I don't think that they would have moved in this direction
01:44:05 ◼ ► Quite so fast had the pandemic not really or had the pandemic not really shook everything up. It accelerated it, right?
01:44:16 ◼ ► and that's the way the world of retail is going to involve but the the pandemic just did a decade of
01:44:25 ◼ ► Can't let it slide because it's my I was gonna ask I was gonna save it but I'll get it out of the way now
01:44:32 ◼ ► But my least favorite thing about Apple stores is the fact that they don't have a dedicated place to go get in line to pay
01:44:41 ◼ ► Maybe I get it that I've been to California enough times that it's an East Coast West Coast thing
01:44:46 ◼ ► But the other thing is that they used to have it in the air like like the the original stores that you modeled
01:44:52 ◼ ► there used to be a place where you would pick up a thing and then here's the line and then you could go and
01:45:08 ◼ ► if it's something you can just pick up off a shelf like an iPhone case and you pick it up and now I want to
01:45:15 ◼ ► You go up to somebody wearing this t-shirt and you're like can can I check out with you and they're like, oh no
01:45:20 ◼ ► You want to find that guy over there and it's like how am I supposed to know that and you and and the other the person
01:45:25 ◼ ► You're supposed to go to is wearing the same shirt, but there's somebody who can check you out
01:45:29 ◼ ► I I complain about it less now because you can do it in the app and that's just what that's actually what I do
01:45:38 ◼ ► Still I still find weird where it's like how does anybody know that I bought this but I mean I do it
01:45:43 ◼ ► I don't I don't shoplift it to test the test the security but I the the years in between them having a
01:46:10 ◼ ► Was I mean it made sense like the idea that you can just walk around wherever in the store and someone will help you and
01:46:18 ◼ ► Without a specific counter. There's never like the appearance of like a line and waiting but but in practice
01:46:29 ◼ ► See about Apple stores and and and I think part of it is that the the feature that you can scan
01:46:46 ◼ ► Before you went into the store and it's only since like last fall that they've started putting
01:46:57 ◼ ► Just they use actually app clip codes where you can just scan the app clip code and it brings up an app clip for
01:47:04 ◼ ► the Apple Store app and then you can just check out right there and they really have not promoted that feature until
01:47:10 ◼ ► The last year and so I don't think that the majority of customers even realize that's an option for them
01:47:23 ◼ ► Okay, well the the Apple pickup counter it functionally it looks like a checkout counter
01:47:29 ◼ ► But but when you when you approach it, you have to already have an online order placed, right?
01:47:34 ◼ ► So in that sense it is that kind of central place where you know where to go when you enter the store
01:47:50 ◼ ► Hold up, whatever you want above your head and kind of wave it around like someone like yeah
01:48:07 ◼ ► In practice, it's not like they've been able to maintain the appearance of no lines because you often get lines congregating around
01:48:15 ◼ ► A specific table where someone is helping people check out and you'll get lines for appointments
01:48:26 ◼ ► Yeah, it is a little bit baffling to me I'll just say though I do the other thing from the pandemic
01:48:33 ◼ ► So I think on the one hand they're more friendly to online shopping and getting a pickup on the other hand
01:48:38 ◼ ► I do think it reiterates the fact that they've come back and there's they're crowded. You're right. I've
01:49:06 ◼ ► That's why people go there and in there they look happy when they're in the Apple store, and I think that's the difference
01:49:25 ◼ ► Meaningful and irreplaceable and yes, you can every single thing Apple sells in those stores
01:49:35 ◼ ► or in the Apple app on your phone and have it shipped to you and you could get free shipping on most of the stuff and
01:49:42 ◼ ► In some sense that's more convenient, right? And I've certainly lots of the stuff I do buy from Apple most of the stuff I buy
01:49:49 ◼ ► I just get shipped to me. I certainly didn't buy my studio display and walk it down Walnut Street
01:49:54 ◼ ► It's you know, but there are times where it's just nice to be there right and it's nice to see things right?
01:50:05 ◼ ► Yeah, one of the things that I was happiest to see come back. It's been about a year now
01:50:11 ◼ ► They they started bringing back the today at Apple sessions that they host in all of the stores and and I think
01:50:23 ◼ ► Kind of quit doing that all together if they decided like it's it's not worth the money or something like that
01:50:29 ◼ ► They could have just said well, we're done with we're done with classes in Apple stores
01:50:34 ◼ ► But they but they brought it back and they've they've started programs like it's called creative studios
01:50:52 ◼ ► Available to to everyone that walks in the store. It's sometimes it's the thing that you have to apply for
01:51:19 ◼ ► Google's attempt at retail and and I know like in the Apple community because a lot of a
01:51:30 ◼ ► Macs and iPhones like the today at Apple sessions are kind of ignored because we all know how to use those features
01:52:10 ◼ ► Used a computer because they were already on the internet and had email and they use Chad and search the web
01:52:25 ◼ ► Right, like don't install anything that the thing they learn from installing software is all of a sudden now
01:52:30 ◼ ► They have a tool bar in every browser window that they never asked and don't know how it got there to oh
01:52:55 ◼ ► Turns them from feeling like everything they do on their computers is going uphill and a struggle to oh
01:53:10 ◼ ► they had all these books in the stores because they wanted you to like maybe get a book on how to get the most out of
01:53:21 ◼ ► You know, what's a lot more effective and more fun and actually more people will do it than reading
01:53:27 ◼ ► The book is sitting down for an hour and hearing from somebody in a class of all these other people who are in the same
01:53:35 ◼ ► Maybe I'm the only person who doesn't know how to create a shared folder with my family and photos
01:53:43 ◼ ► dozen other people exactly like you or maybe they're not like you because they're older and younger and they're from
01:53:49 ◼ ► Different different in those ways, but the one thing you all share is you're all there to learn how to do more with photos and
01:54:03 ◼ ► Fully describe it with words why that's different than all being in the same zoom class at the same time
01:54:11 ◼ ► Right, it is being in a real place with real other people and having a real person from Apple in front of you
01:54:19 ◼ ► It explain this to you and then feeling like hey, I actually feel like they want my question. They're not just perfunctory
01:54:27 ◼ ► Asking do you have questions and hoping I don't they seem to really want to know if I have questions and and I do have
01:54:45 ◼ ► Something that's really exciting especially like the the photo and video sessions that Apple does where you go on like on a photo walk
01:54:53 ◼ ► Around the mall or something like that and and when you come back to the store at the end of it
01:55:00 ◼ ► You'll like airdrop the photos you took to the creative pro that's presenting and then they will
01:55:05 ◼ ► Airplay those from their phone right up onto the big video wall. And I think there's there's something really exciting about
01:55:13 ◼ ► Seeing your work in that context and and what you're able to do in that session versus like
01:55:25 ◼ ► I think it resonates in a way that is truly important to being a human being and I know that could sound corny
01:55:32 ◼ ► But it I think it's true and I think it's fundamental to the success. All right bonus round. Here we go final questions
01:55:39 ◼ ► Okay, I told you my least favorite thing about Apple stores is they don't have a dedicated queue for I here
01:55:46 ◼ ► Tell me your what what's give me your biggest annoyance or thing or just thing you would change if it were up to Michael
01:56:04 ◼ ► But there is this divide between the classic store design the stainless steel walls that look and
01:56:50 ◼ ► The the new products are shoehorned into an old design and Apple's kind of maintained both designs
01:57:00 ◼ ► remodeling stores to the new design and I think that if you walk into a new store and an old store back to back that
01:57:17 ◼ ► For the the brand image really going forward that there's more consistency between the stores
01:57:24 ◼ ► That's a good answer and I do feel it's funny because I don't feel like our our Walnut Street store is dated
01:58:00 ◼ ► Yes, like the Apple Store here on Walnut Street has no plants and it doesn't have any leather seats and like that's sort of the
01:58:16 ◼ ► Footprint and I don't know if they're on the hunt for that if they are there in luck because there's a lot of a lot
01:58:23 ◼ ► So I wouldn't be surprised if there's actually a hunt going on if they're thinking that because to me that's part of the new style
01:58:50 ◼ ► Alright, and then what about your favorite little thing that maybe people don't really think about about apples Apple retail stores. Oh
01:58:56 ◼ ► Wow, that is difficult. I thought maybe the other one would be the one where I put you on the spot
01:59:04 ◼ ► So the complaint about the dated style of the dichotomy between the two architectures, that's your complaint. What about a little thing?
01:59:12 ◼ ► Okay, so I really love the tables in Apple stores and I don't think that people really think
01:59:20 ◼ ► Deeply about what's going on with the tables and I actually I named my newsletter about Apple retail
01:59:37 ◼ ► Television sets that were like consoles that like I do a wood box around the TV, right? Yep
01:59:53 ◼ ► so there's so much going on inside the table from like the on the newest tables like the
02:00:05 ◼ ► Any cable coming down from the center on the older stores. There's there's power management inside the tables, right? There are actual
02:00:18 ◼ ► USB-c bricks that you get with like a MacBook right there inside the tables and there and there's complex like
02:00:24 ◼ ► Mechanisms inside the table for for routing cables, especially like an Apple watch display table
02:00:35 ◼ ► it's it's not just a big solid block of wood and I think a lot of people do know about at the back of the
02:00:49 ◼ ► The the tables you you can wave your hand over the table and the the outlets will like rotate
02:00:57 ◼ ► Out of out of the tabletop if you've never seen it, it's it's hard to explain but there's a there's a
02:01:15 ◼ ► So if you sit down for like a genius power point that you can plug in your Mac or whatever
02:01:33 ◼ ► You mentioned so that was a perfect segue you mentioned that you publish a newsletter called
02:01:56 ◼ ► Yeah, so so that's a project that I started a while back actually when I was at at 9 to 5 Mac and it's it's a
02:02:11 ◼ ► Link specific things in my articles when I didn't want to explain like what's what's the video wall?
02:02:18 ◼ ► Every time I wrote a story because the audience was some people had never visited a store
02:02:24 ◼ ► So I would just I would just link to certain things like that rather than explain it every time and but that that gloss
02:02:31 ◼ ► She's a little bit outdated. I should I should probably update it. But um, it's maybe now that I'm finished modeling those stores
02:02:45 ◼ ► Detailed than I had any hope that it might be the glossary is actually way more comprehensive
02:02:52 ◼ ► Then I was guessing that it was it is actually really really it's almost like a little like a book really really nice
02:02:59 ◼ ► But anyway, the home page at that site, which I again I promise will be in the show notes has links to everything
02:03:07 ◼ ► Including your tabletops newsletter once a week and it's just just about Apple retail if anybody's listening to this and you're thinking this guy really
02:03:17 ◼ ► Tabletops is I guarantee you the newsletter for you and the glossary and links to your articles
02:03:52 ◼ ► Anybody out there listens to this podcast who hasn't downloaded it and tried it who now isn't thinking I got it