You personally may think the store is "stagnant", but have you actually been in one lately? The one closest to me is *rammed* with people during trading hours. On the past few times I've been in there for genius appointments and so on, the place has been packed.
Yes it's packed, but that's not necessarily a good thing. When you have to wait for 45 min for your genius bar appointment because they're running behind, that's not a good thing. When it take 20+ minutes to find a specialist capable of answering your question, it's not a good thing. When you have to wait to find someone to go to the back to get your computer that you're ready to spend thousands of dollars on because every Specialist is busy talking with the teen girls and guys, it's not a good thing.
Honestly, how many MR members wouldn't rather order online and have it shipped to their house without bothering to deal with the crowds.
Sales are up and that is a good thing. The Apple stores are immensely profitable per square foot and that's a good thing. But to say that there is no room for improvement is simply untrue.
This is going to be a telling year.
If Apple doesn't innovate this year then I'm afraid the future will not be so bright.
Define "innovate" because that's such a b***s*** term that everyone loves to throw around in the tech industry.
Samsung, Google, et. al. aren't innovators. They throw every half-baked feature they can cram into Android Phones, and they do it half-a**ed. NFC is a solution in search of a problem. Bigger screens! More megapixels! Big freaking deal.
The entire ultrabook market is a response to the ultraportable market from 10+ years ago, focusing on thin and light. Finally the technology has caught up so that they can compete with desktops. And that applies to the MacBook Air too. Even still, very few companies (maybe Dell and HP) have a distinctive design instead of just copying the popular wedge shape. (I'm not saying that Apple invented the wedge-shaped computer, just that it's been their signature style in the past few years while everyone was producing giant bricks).
So who, in your mind, is the innovator? Or does that just sound like the popular thing to say?