With all the excitement of Leopard this weekend, it’s easy to gloss over the other important event – the opening of a new Apple store just a scant 36 miles from my home.
36 miles from your home, you say? Surely that’s out in the middle of nowhere!? You’re right, it is. The trouble is, these days, lots of people live in the middle of nowhere. They’ve ruined nowhere for the rest of us. Since nowhere has been ruined, we might as well look for the silver lining, and that lining would be the Apple store.
This store follows the new trend, the elimination of cash registers. All transactions are processed on small hand-held devices and the receipt is e-mailed to you. I think they piloted this either last year or the year before at Christmas time and the iPod express table. I’ve also noticed lately that they use this technique when the line to check out is getting long.
Apparently the in-store testing has been successful enough that not only is this new store devoid of any visible registers, but they told me they’d be redoing the other two stores in Phoenix soon as well.
Darn clever of them. You talk to an associate, you’ve decided you’re going to take it and he whips out his portable register and you’re paid for and gone. Conversely, if you want to buy something, you have to get the attention of an associate.
I think maybe the associate I spoke with wasn’t the most knowledgeable, but he was friendly and efficient. I asked him about Leopard’s lack of Classic mode.
“Yes, that’s right,†he said.
“So, that means any of the programs over there that have minimum requirements of System 7, 8 or 9 probably use Classic, and therefore won’t work under Leopard.â€
“No, not really,†he says, “most programs are dual binary.â€
BZZZZT. Wrong answer, I do believe. Dual binary deals with PowerPC/Intel programming, but anything that runs under System 9 or less must be a classic-style program.
I’m surprised Apple didn’t yank them off the shelves, or at least put them in a “Does not run under Leopard†shelf.
I spoke to a couple of the people standing at the front door, greeting people. They said last night at the grand opening and Leopard release they did have over a thousand people. I assume they knew that because they ran out of shirts. Today, the store seemed to be having a steady load of visitors.
This weekend was also the grand opening of SanTan Village which is very large, yet quite strange indeed. I don’t think I like the idea of a shopping plaza with parking right up to the stores. Perhaps they’re trying to reinvent the High Street concept.
What’s on my iTunes right now?
Boat Chase from the album “Live And Let Die†by George Martin
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