The Genius of Apple Stores

I’ll admit that when the Apple Stores were first launched I was one of the skeptical ones. After all, around that time Gateway was just announcing store closings. Of course, I should have known that it was silly to compare Gateway with Apple.

What made me realize the beauty of the Apple retail store idea was a call I recently got from a friend this weekend in Atlanta. They needed a new laptop and were in the parking lot at Circuit City. Did I have any advice?

Well I always state my Mac bias up front when giving advice to friends. In some ways I think I’m too timid. Instead of saying the truth, that Window’s boxes in the home are virus-riddeled, spyware crippled piece of junk that keep a large number of IT drones in business; that Windows is a cheap rip off of the Mac UI and that using Internet Explorer on a PC to check your online banking is akin to giving your debit card to some kid in Eastern Europe I generally pause, take a deep breath, and try to be objective.

This particular friend was about to start studying to be a nurse. I suggested she call the school to find out if they recommend a Mac or PC. With that little bit of objective housekeeping out of the way I quickly looked up Apple’s retail store locations on its website. Sure enough it has a store in Atlanta and it is in the Lenox Mall. Now I don’t Atlanta well at all but apparently the Lenox Mall is an upscale mall. Which isn’t a surprise. Apple has cleverly aligned its brand with upscale malls (so much for the computer for the rest of us, oh well).

My friend instantly recognized the mall and said she was close by. Right after checking out circuit city she would check out the Apple store. Naturally, as a student-to-be on a budget she was concerned about price and her brand-perception of Apple was that it would be too expensive. I immediately told her the lowest end Apple laptop, the iBook cost just $999 and that if she was really strapped for cash she could get a desktop Mac mini for $499 (how good it felt to finally be able to tell someone they could get a Mac for under 500 bucks!!)

I next spoke to my friend a few hours later. She was glowing after a stupendous Apple store experience. This person is neither a Mac or Windows user, she doesn’t have a computer yet. Often times we, who are so ensconced with our computers, often forget that there is a sizable population out there that don’t use Macs, Windows or Linux—they are computer-less.

She said the Apple person was obviously pro-Mac but not in an aggressive way. They were very helpful, even mentioning a couple of applications that were available for her profession to be, nursing.

Apple Matters has reported in the past that there are problems with the Apple store staff, and there still are. However, there is no doubt in my mind that the net affect of the Apple retail store endeavor is overwhelming positive. Don’t get me wrong, the independent stores are still fantastic for Apple. They were the beacon of the Apple brand in the past, supporting Macintosh users pre-retail stores. And they continue to be a vibrant part of the Macintosh community.

However, for Apple neophytes there is nothing like the consistent experience of the Apple retail store. It introduces the Macintosh in a beautiful, positive way (staff on hand occasionally notwithstanding) and, with the combination of the Genius bar, helps that person enter the Macintosh community confidently.