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Apple's All-New Birmingham Store Opens September 24, Bullring Location to Close

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Apple has announced its all-new store in Birmingham, England, located at 128 New Street, opens on Saturday, September 24 at 9:00 a.m. local time. Apple's nearby Bullring Shopping Centre store will permanently close on Friday, just one week after customers lined up for the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.

apple-birmingham.jpg
Apple Birmingham under renovations via MacRumors reader Barry Rimmer​

Apple has taken over a six-story building recently vacated by British bookstore Waterstones, and originally built in 1879 for Midland Bank.

Major planning documents for the inside of the 20,000-square-foot former banking hall were submitted to the Birmingham City Council last year, and renovations have been in progress for the past several months. Apple's logo and the grand opening date were added to a construction barrier outside of the building last week.

bullring_hero.jpg
Apple Store at nearby Bullring Shopping Centre​

Apple Bullring opened in April 2005, and like many of its earlier locations, it is now too small and narrow to accommodate for increased foot traffic. Apple is in the process of relocating several of its retail stores to larger spaces, based on the company's next-generation retail design language inspired by Jony Ive.

Article Link: Apple's All-New Birmingham Store Opens September 24, Bullring Location to Close
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2016/09/20/apple-birmingham-opening-bullring-closing/
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Reactions: OllyW
I like how the article starts out feeling like "oh no apple is doooooomed" but ends on a "oh it was just too small, we need a bigger space due to too much foot traffic". Typical journalism.
 
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Reactions: orbital~debris
Xgm541 said:
I like how the article starts out feeling like "oh no apple is doooooomed" but ends on a "oh it was just too small, we need a bigger space due to too much foot traffic". Typical journalism.
Click to expand...

What are you talking about? Lol. It doesn't feel like that at all.
 
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Xgm541 said:
I like how the article starts out feeling like "oh no apple is doooooomed" but ends on a "oh it was just too small, we need a bigger space due to too much foot traffic". Typical journalism.
Click to expand...

What article did you read? :confused:
 
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Six story building you say? What are they going to do with the four subterranean levels?
Maybe it's Jonny's home base bat cave?
Or, could be where Tim stashes all that overseas never-to-be-repatriated profit?
As it's Brum, perhaps it's a skunk works, and Apple have really bought the British Leyland IP… Gawd help us! A self driving Metro :)
 
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Cuban Missles said:
Intrigued by your comment I went to the Apple website and found this.

http://www.apple.com/retail/
[doublepost=1474380953][/doublepost]
Apple has not retired the word --

http://www.apple.com/retail/
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Yeah. The change is simply "Apple Store, Bullring" to "Apple Bullring," for example, and I follow this naming convention in all of my store-related articles. But when generically referring to an Apple retail location, I still call them stores. It's what they are.
 
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OllyW said:
It's been too small since the day it opened, it's always rammed in there every time I go in.
Click to expand...

Haven't been to the Bullring store since Manchester Trafford/Liverpool ONE opened, but I do remember it being fairly small. Dread to think what it was like on launch days or the busy weekend queues of people who routinely drop their phone in loos.

Would I be right in inferring that all of the Bullring staff have simply been moved over? No silly staff cuts/reapplying for the same positions?
 
I wonder if Leicester will get a new Apple Store cause Highcross is tiny and there's plenty of historical buildings around that they could take up.
 
The old Bullring store was way too small for the number of visitors. It's the same with many of Apple's narrow two storey UK stores. Hopefully Liverpool will be next for a bigger store.
 
The bullring store has been fine for clicking and collecting but too full of rather aimless shoppers. The building they are going to be using was great as a bookshop so I can envisage it very much like the Regent Street one in London.
 
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I'm hoping it means they have more stock on release date for things. Also the bullring store is very tight to walk around with so many people going in daily.
 
I learnt how to be a software developer in that building in the late 90s; before the prevalence of Stack Overflow and the like, the easiest way to find a wide variety of resources was to spend Saturday afternoons browsing books in the Computer Science department. In those days, it was Dillons - I never understood why Waterstones didn't close down the branch on High Street and consolidate into the (much nicer) banking hall when they took over Dillons. I don't get back to Birmingham often enough, but I may have to make a special trip to reminisce.
 
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It doesn't look vastly bigger than the Bullring store (width-wise), but it is a much better looking building than a plain rectangle in a shopping centre :)
 
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