Apple Revamps Retail Stores with Interactive iPad Displays

[warcom]

Those setup's in the Apple stores look horrible.

Not to mention; who wants to stick earphones in your ears, after they've been in other peoples? Disgusting.

 

[Ivan P]

huh? and where can i get one of those? I dont see it anywhere at the apple.de store (german store)

http://store.apple.com/us/configure/MC721LL/A?mco=MjEyOTY5MDM

Go down to "Display", and it's the third and final option. Basically it doesn't have the shiny piece of glass on the top of the screen, so you see the silver aluminum border instead. It's available in physical stores and online, but for some reason it's not mentioned on the actual MacBook Pro webpage.

 

[FroMann]

Pretty cool at what they did to their stores, but how much was all of this in total? I hope those iPads were refurbished.

 

[AppleScruff1]

Anybody catch anything from the community earbuds yet? Yummy!

 

[rdowns]

Pretty cool at what they did to their stores, but how much was all of this in total? I hope those iPads were refurbished.

Yeah, Apple is really hurting for cash.

For all intents and purposes, you have a POS display that will last a year (will be replaced with iPad 3 when they come out) that is very informative and from what I saw in the Apple store yesterday, very much liked by customers.

 

[thirteen1031]

Watch a video of the iPad signs in action

Maybe this has already been said and this link posted--I haven't time to read all the posts here, however, the iPad signs make a whole lot of sense if you see them in action, as in the video offered by this review.

Almost any product in the Apple store (iPods probably excepted) now requires that you decide on size, extras, and other things; this gets especially complicated with iPhone and iPads which also require the customer to decide on a phone company. How else can a person be told what they need to know about the coverage of the phone plan and the details of the different plans, or just what the cost of what they're buying will be depending on the options they pick? They could be informed of all this by an employee, but prices and options on different products change every two or three months and it'd be hard for employees to keep up. Also, such things are much clearer if they can be seen on a chart rather than explained verbally.

So, iPads to give customers any info they might need makes a whole lot of sense and is much more efficient, given the constant changes and upgrades, than constantly printing and changing out paper signs.

The little video linked above shows a customer touching on different options and the price of the item they're interested in changing each time, right there on the iPad to show the customer what getting this or that option would do to the price. A paper sign can't do that. Likewise, the iPhone "sign" allowed customers to check out phone plans and coverage and such, which people need to know--should know--before they can decide to buy or not, let alone what to buy.

I don't know if all these iPad signs are more or less "green," and I don't know how good/bad all the cables look as I haven't gone to a store to see for myself. But given how complicated things have gotten with iPads and iPhones and the phone company plans and computers with various choices of disk drive and RAM options, these interactive signs would seem to be not vanity or overkill, but a necessity.

 

[caspersoong]

This required gigabytes of data? Amazing.

 

[hiptobesquare]

I wonder if these are a special configuration, that is only internal to Apple, and not for sale.

If one thinks about it, it would be relatively easy to build a kioskPad.

Take one iPad, ditch the battery entirely, and use the minimum internal storage space.

It certainly doesn't need 3G. Maybe keep the WiFi for network management from a MacOS Server on the subnet, or via it's wired connection.

Manufacture a custom back panel that allows a dock cable to plug into a recessed socket in the middle of the back panel, not cluttering up the side. Or a permanently fixed cable that doesn't un-plug on the iPad end.

Integrate a circuit path that the anti-theft system in the display tables works with to detect the cable being un-plugged.

Load custom software that is dedicated for use.

You basically have a kiosk touch pad that looks and operates pretty much like a limited iPad, powered by it's tether cable, and not requiring a battery at all.

And if someone steals it... they get an LCD-screen paper-weight.