With party hats on noggins (in some cases) and a box full of iPads, Apple ushered in the new worldwide redesign of its retail Apple Stores today. While the date isn't itself significant, it does come shortly after the tenth anniversary of the opening of the first-ever Apple retail store—in McLean, Virginia, that is.
So what's the big secret? The huge store transformation? The brand-new method of retail shopping that allegedly comes straight from the minds of Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive? In a word, iPads.
No, really: iPads. Apple has updated its retail stores with a ton of iPad 2s, which now sit next to Apple Store products to give consumers more information about the devices they're looking at.
The iPads themselves run some kind of custom Apple software that make them a bit different—and less susceptible to user shenanigans—than your typical retail device. For starters, the home buttons on the display iPads allegedly do absolutely nothing. And the power cords for the devices still connect to the bottom of the display iPad 2, just not in the conventional, "sticking out from the bottom" method most iPad users are used to seeing.
Apple's using customized ribbon cables to power both the display iPad 2 and the product it's promoting. Allegedly, being a jerk and detaching the power cable summons forth an alarm from the devices. And if you successfully steal one, the iPad allegedly keeps "calling home" to Apple with the Wi-Fi-based coordinate of the device.
So what, then, can one do with these display iPads? For starters, the touchscreen tablets make it easy to check out a product's specifications, features, and price. You can also compare different models of products on-the-fly in a manner similar to what you might find on Apple's Web-based store. A third tab is customized depending on the kind of product you're looking at, be it a Macbook laptop (New to Mac?) or an iPad itself (supported carriers). And a fourth tab pulls up information on Apple's various support options and offers to assist customers in need.
In addition, a fifth button on the iPad displays' menu bar allows users to page an Apple Store employee, who will walk over and answer any questions customers have about a device.
A new Apple Store App was rumored to come with the retail store redesign as well. It's still on the way—pulling up store.apple.com with one's iPhone or iPad brings up an announcement for the app as well as a download link that does nothing at the time of this article's writing. Rumor is that the new app will officially hit on Monday, and it'll give users the ability to fully customize their Apple purchases in the same way they'd do it via Apple's official store.apple.com gateway. That's a lot better than the current "stock configurations only" purchasing setup in the current version of the Apple Store App.
For more from David, follow him on Twitter @TheDavidMurphy.