Apple’s First 24-hour Store Opens Tonight

Tonight at 6 p.m. EST, Apple will open its latest and most innovative store at 767 Fifth Avenue in the heart of New York City .

This 147th store will be the first 24-hour Apple retail outlet, and corporate decision makers are toying with the idea of keeping it open 365 days a year. Not a bad idea for its location in the city that never sleeps and a corner that receives some of the greatest tourist traffic.

Mr. Jobs, always wanting to push the envelope with store design elements, is reported to have requested that workers swap out the sophisticated titanium hardware between the glass panels. Jobs’ complaint: the bolts were too conspicuous and interrupted the aesthetic of the piece. Jobs may personally have had a hand in the design of the cube.

The store is subterranean, and all that can be seen of it from across the street (with the Plaza Hotel and Bergdorf Goodman haughtily looking on) is a three story, 20,000-square-foot black paneled glass cube. Jobs is expected to appear at the opening. The rumor mill has been grinding over the events surrounding this opening, from reports on Curbed, an online NYC real estate magazine, that Apple has requested a street (presumably 58th or 59th) be closed for the performance of a major live band, to a MacBook release.

Apple Computer Inc. opened its first retail store in 2001 in little McLean, Virginia. The critics and naysayers could not argue that the stores brought in a lot of revenue for the empire. The Wall Street Journal reported that revenue from Apple’s stores was $235 billion in fiscal year 2005, or 17 percent of Apple’s total sales, up from $621 million in fiscal year 2003.

New Apple stores have not always been welcomed by non-Apple retailers of Apple products. Several lawsuits have been filed over the years in Santa Clara County Superior Court in California, alleging that Apple’s stores competed unfairly with them because of a huge operating budget and a larger stock of supplies.
According to the Wall Street Journal report, “Apple started its line of stores in the first place because it believed other retailers weren’t doing an effective job of showcasing its Macintosh computers.”

Features at the NYC store will include the popular “genius bar,” a section where Apple-tech geeks will help customers free of charge with their Apple products. Workshops will be hosted in-store by experts offering tips and training advice. Free Internet connections and Apple products will be available as always.
A service unique to the store is its on-site repair of many Apple products, including laptops, which are currently shipped out for repair in most cases. The Soho Apple Store has an appointment schedule when customers can bring in their Apple gadget to drop off for repair, but the high volume of appointments often frustrates customers. An iPod Bar has been added to the reconfigured standard layout of Apple’s stores at the Fifth Avenue location.

The staff for the new store is already at full capacity; different from the phase-in of employees that is usually the case. The staff is said to have undergone “unprecedentedly-extensive training” to take the edge off much of the staff’s reported inexperience.

One thing is guaranteed for this grand opening: show up and Apple Computer Inc. has promised customers a commemorative T-shirt.