Apple Store – University Village
My second visit to my local Apple Store today . . . I went to the opening, but not for long and after the grand opening.
I walked around a bit, played with stuff, and found it enjoyable, if a little sterile. Perhaps that’s more an insight into how sloppy I am . . .
I like that everything is plugged in and networked, ready to play with. I’m looking to spring for an iBook, most likely the littlest one, given my financial situation, so I played with it some. Kind of hard to make up my mind when I’m used to a 2 x 1.25 GHz machine 8 hours a day. And I am totally used to the ThinkPad’s little pointer and multiple mouse buttons, to the point if someone made a replacement keyboard with a pointer, I’d want one. It’s hard to go from pointing with, well, your pointer finger to using your thumb.
And speed might be an issue. It might be worth jumping up to the G4 ‘Books. I get some discount as a UW employee, but not enough to bridge the gap. (It gets me the babyBook for $1399, without any added options. Adding the Airport card would take it to almost $1500.)
I also like the wide array of peripherals, printers, scanners, business card scanners, speakers, and the rest. Cameras were also available in abundance. And of course, lots of iPods, including some with those curious Creature speaker rigs.
Lots of traffic, lots of helpful staff. I think it makes it even more clear why Apple took this route. They’re not selling commodity hardware, but an experience, and you can’t sell that very effectively through the ads in the back of Computer Shopper. People need to handle the merchandise like they’re picking fresh fruits and vegetables.