Just let me just have one more post about it. Looking at this old blog post today and the photos from the weekend really made me remember what a horrible old building the now Apple store was.
This (on the left) was right in the heart of Perth, a run down old shitty looking shop – with a health food store, bakery and Joynt Venture (bong shop/music store) upstairs. So love or hate Apple, just be grateful that renovations like this can happen in less than 6 months and make our growing city look better and actually feel alive.
Was it everything I expected?
Let’s start with the first question, and let me simply say – yes it was everything that I expected. It was a retail shop opening but it was more how the store opened. I worked in retail from the age of 14 till I was 22, so that is 8 years of solid retail work. In two of the four companies I worked for I was involved in 3 shop openings, but no huge events like Apple opening their first in Perth and with none of the theatrics. I expected hype and I got hype, along with friendly service and a great example of beautiful industrial design.
Was it fun?
If you think arriving in the city at 7am, standing in line for 2 hours in -0.4C tempretures and hanging with your best friend in the whole world before meeting up with other new/old friends to witness a fantastic example of retail launch fun, then this was well and above it.
(Note: I’ve lined up in car parks for 14+ hours to see small intimate gigs by Billy Corgan from the Smashing Pumpkins so this was a walk in the park.)
Did they give you ‘the clap’?
Yes! One of the most odd feelings you will ever experience is walking into a store and being met by 30+ staff clapping you in, shaking your hand and giving you high fives *Eiffel tower!*
Will you experience this type of retail event again?
Never say never I guess, but unless it is another Apple store opening I doubt I’ll experience something like this. I can’t see another company, especially another tech company take this leap and this approach into the retail market. That being said, yes Microsoft have their retail stores in America but I think it will be along time until they come to Australia, let alone Perth … and search on YouTube and you’ll see the ‘boot-scooting’ Microsoft do to welcome their customers.
Why?
Because I wanted to do it. I don’t need to justify it to anybody, if somebody called me a “sheep Apple fan boy” then their instant dislike for a company simply because they are ‘that’ company is worse than my apparent fan-boyism. True? I use this one companies products because they all work together, no screwing around with BETA version 2.3a etc for my phone. It works, it works with my computers, it works with my media centre. It is my choice. People that know me well would know that if Nintendo were opening a store, I’d be there too. (Am I blind Nintendo fan boy too? )
Where was I? Oh yeah, all in all, the experience was fantastic. Once in the store we walked around for a little bit, chatted with some staff about the whole set up experience, saw some of the iPod touches that are basically mobile checkouts, looked at some future possible purchases and enjoyed the experience. The exciting thing is now knowing that if I have a problem with any of our Apple products that we can make an appointment with their Genius staff, head right into the store and get it fixed. Something that most other tech / hardware / software companies simply can’t offer in the retail world.
So after months of blogging about this, I’m glad we finally have a store. I’m glad my parents can head in for one on one training classes, I’m happy I can get things fixed without having to send them away, I’m excited there is free open wifi (yay!) and I’m glad Perth has the flagship store in the CBD.
Seriously, go visit and view my photos up on flickr too!
PS: Walking back to the car, poor Sony store around the corner, 10.30am on a Saturday and not a person in store.
Looking at the Apple retail page for the Perth store there is a banner area saying “Featured In-Store” and a picture of the new iPhone 4. Considering the fact the iPhone isn’t set to be released here for another month or so this display model could be the biggest attraction for the new store, besides all the other shiney stuff.
I guess we’ll have to wait until Saturday, look forward to meeting a few other people there and all fighting over the iPhone 4 … if it is there. Because let’s be honest, when does Perth ever get lucky. This is most likely just a web admin that duplicated a site template and forgot to remove the iPhone 4 banner. Right?
]]>However something is in the air and changes are starting to happen in this sleepy old town lately, one change being Apple are finally coming to town. Back in July of 2009 Australia’s leading Apple community, Mactalk, discovered that Perth would be next in line for the 6th Australian Apple store, but where would the store be?
With stores in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane scattered between CBD and outer suburb shopping centre locations, the rumours of where the Perth outlet would open where flying around the internet fairly fast.
A few possibilities rumoured were – The high fashion district of King St? The new complex that is being built above the Underground Station? Outer suburb shopping centre of Garden City? … and many others.
A few weeks ago it was finally announced by a City of Perth spokesman and they confirmed it had approved a $2.5 million planning application and building licence for refurbishment of an existing retail site on Hay Street. The chosen outlet is the the former site of the Joynt Venture “lifestyle” store and this is how the store currently looks:
While the building itself isn’t looking that special (yet), the location itself is perfect and right near a new lot of new high end developments happening in Perth. It will be two shops down from Boffins (the designers favourite bookshop), around the corner from the café/fashion strip of King St and such brands as Burberry/Louis Vuitton outlets close by it is clear why Apple has chosen such a spot.
Yesterday on my way home I walked past the location to see what was happening and at this stage it is a whole lot of nothing. The boards are up and the workers were going home. From peering behind the boards it looks like they’ve just spent time clearing out the old stores and combining them all into one large floor space. The building itself extends the full way back onto Wolf Lane and from memory contains high art deco ceilings, so this store has the potential to become a great showcase store for Apple.
As the typical Apple fan, I’ll occasionally walk past and see what is happening and of course keep an update on here.
]]>
So if you’re like me, and want to “mix up” your desktop life a little – I’ve created 6 variations for you to brighten up that screen of yours (download).
To get the full effect, in System Preferences on your Mac set your desktop to animate every 10 mins, 1 minute or even 5 seconds so your desktop will change … like some wonderful aurora in the outer regions of the galaxy. As seen below via the magic of Snow Leopard new screencast feature. (and yes, this was the main reason for the update I wanted to test this new toy)
]]>
While the new interface upgrades look fantastic and I’m sure this leading to bigger and better things with future OS X releases … the designer in me just can’t get past the front cover of the box art, and I’m not alone.
When you compare it to the graphical boxes for releases of years gone by, this one just comes across as “typical” and “expected“. Not typical by Apple’s standard, but just typically ordinary and logical … words I would never use to describe the artistic direction from Apple. So at first look you can understand why people would be questioning why Apple have made such a decision.
Yet there would be some logic behind the design direction and this is when it begins to make sense … to me at least.
1. This has always been stated not to be seen as full release, hence the cheaper price. This was not the huge advance interface steps that we saw in Panther to Tiger, and then Tiger to Leopard. So why should they be held to having the giant X on the front of the box?
Could this be the first steps Apple are taking to get the adoring Apple fan base to stop referring to OS releases as OS X? Could this be the last OS X release and they would prefer the focus is on the new brand of ‘Snow Leopard’ and not OS X – Snow Leopard, as was with Leopard a few years back. With the branding having equal weight on this new design, it is definitely allowing for a traditional phase in the branding of this product range.
It is with this concept behind the actual product I can see why they created packaging that is clearly separated from the previous releases.
2. Now this is fairly obvious. The product is called Snow Leopard. Snow = White. Majority of the box is white. What better way have seamless packaging that by having a photograph of a Snow Leopard in the snow fading into the rest of the white on the box?
Look I studied design, I’ve been working as a designer in the commercial world for 7 years now and yeah I would be shocked too if this was the best idea I came up with too. Yet, I really think that looking at this subjectively and not knowing the FULL marketing plan behind this and future directions for Apple, this could very well be the perfect decision.
Yes it is simple, yes it obvious and I was like you too and thought “Huh?” at first but … Why shouldn’t a simple design like this work? This is Apple, a company named after a fruit and their logo is … surprise surprise an apple. Like life itself, design shouldn’t always be over complicated and as we all know sometimes the most obvious solution can be the best.
So I’ll stand up proud and say I don’t mind the Snow Leopard box art … who is with me?
]]>
]]>
It was looking at my iPhone that got me thinking, is the name of this device the biggest thing holding it back. Will Apple have to change the highly successful name one day to allow the “phone” to grow and to make consumers see this as more than a phone.
Yeah yeah, I know that might sound like a crazy statement. What is in a name? We all know how great this device is, I don’t need to “blah blah” on about it … so if you own one, can I ask do you just see this as your phone? or is it more than that?
The reason I ask this is because could the fact that the word ‘phone’ is in the title is the main reason some people find it hard to see it as anything more. We’ve all been mobile phone users for over a decade now at least, we’ve seen the evolution from crappy phones to mediocre phones to now phones that have a feature set similar to a personal computer.
There are people I know that are iPhone owners who often frustrate me with comments like ‘Oh I’m not paying $12.99 for that game, its just expensive‘ yet they will happily pay $59.00 for a similar game on another portable device like the Nintendo DS or PSP.
A game that I’ll use as an example is the (sort of) new racing game for the iPhone, Real Racing, developed by Melbourne based gaming company Firemint. This game that plays extremely well, has impressive graphics and that could easily be sold for five times the price on any stand alone portable gaming device is yours for the price of discounted b-grade Disney movie from JB Hifi. Yet … ‘this is to expensive’ for some.
The logic still baffles me, considering that with any iPhone game you’ve got the extra bonus that you’re able to purchase this game without leaving the house, have it with you anywhere you go without needing to take a cartridge or disc with you, receive updates and advancements to the game allowing the game to always stay ‘current’- yet it is still seen as a ‘questionable purchase’. This doesn’t even take into consideration the cheaper games that are a few dollars. Those few dollars some will happily throw to a busker on the street singing a terrible version of Cold Chisel’s – Khe Sanh, yet will take hours or days to think about spending that $2.49 on an app that developers spent weeks or months building so that you can use it anytime, anywhere as much as you like.
Does this mentality stem from our history with gaming on our phones? Are we still bitter about those terrible games we spent money on to play a crappy golf or Tetris game on our Nokia 6120 back in the early 2000′s? I know it’s hard to move on people, but I think we can now. I think we have to start seeing mobile games in a different light. It is no longer the fact that the games that are being developed are less than great and aren’t worth to be in the same price point as Nintendo DS or PSP games. Mr and Mrs iPhone consumer it is time we got that idea out of our subconscious – this is not just a phone that can play games.
The fact is, everybody that has an iPhone will always say “Oh this is more than a phone, its got my email, my IM clients, my web browser, it’s camera … etc” … so why can’t it be also classed as serious portable gaming device too? Something that is seen as an equal and the price of the games are seen as equal too. Now Im not saying that EVERY game is super amazing, there are a lot of shit games (and I’ve purchased my fair share) but with the App Store only being around for a year so far we are still in early days and within those early days there have been many amazing games released amongst the hundreds of less than average ones.
So if you’re reading this and you’re offended that Im calling you cheap for not wanting to a) pay for any apps or b) not pay for apps over a certain price, then perhaps the problem isn’t mine and you should really ask yourself – what is the iPhone. A phone? or something more?
How can this mentality ever change?
Does this mean that in 12 months time when Apple are (hopefully) to release a new version of the phone that we will see an entire new name? It is a logistical marketing nightmare that it seems Apple have backed themselves into. Unlike the iPod that was ambiguous with its naming it had the freedom to evolve through different phases, what started off as a music player, then turned into a video/music/photo/gaming device and then also eventually evolved into a touch screen device with a whole range of new features. All still known as being part of the iPod family. I think it is fair to say that to majority of the public out there, as it stands the iPhone will always be seen as simply a phone first and other devices second due to its name.
]]>I’ve been a Mac user for coming up to 9 years now and I’ve always just put everything on the dock. All the programs I use, no matter really how often I would just whack everything on it. Well not everything, but lets say 70-80% of my applications would be there. Now thats fine when you’re on a large screen (maybe) but my lil’ 13″ MacBook doesn’t really suit such a large dock.
I thought I would finally take use of the Leorpard -’Stack’s feature and group my applications into folders and have those stacks sit on my dock. After a week of working this way I have to say Im liking working this way. Audio, web, iWork etc programs are now all in their little stack folders.
All looks nice and neat now huh?
Well, I was even more impressed, when it picked up (from this picture) a small picture of none other than David from 90210 – Brian Austin Green. Bravo, Apple … Bravo.
