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Multiple Simply Mac Stores Shutting Down Across the U.S.

To use an early 2000s Internet cliche: As the owner of an independent Apple reseller that's been around for a quarter of a century, and (to be honest) one who's kind of hated SimplyMac (the post-GameStop SimplyMac, anyway — I totally understand that the eight-location small Utah company was a different beast), I'm getting a kick out of this.

I had no idea PeachMac was in such dire straits when Simply bought them. Wow. Darryl Peck (former owner of PeachMac) must've laughed all the way to the bank. That said, what kind of crappy due diligence process (if any) does GameStop have if they didn't find out about PeachMac's troubles before pulling the trigger on buying them out? Jeez, I'd love to be bought out by a company that stupid. (I'm joking. Kind of.)

Anyway, support your local independent, if you happen to be lucky enough to have one. We were here WAY before there was such a thing as the Apple Store, and our employees often have more experience and knowledge than Apple's retail store employees.

(Side note: I can't believe Simply is closing stores even after paying such garbage wages to their employees. We start people at nearly twice that, and once we go to $15/hour minimum effective 1/1/2018, it'll be more than double that. Any company that treats their people so crappy deserves to go out of business, frankly.)
 
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yadmonkey said:
I've never been in a Simply Mac - can anyone comment on the quality of their stores/service?
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The one near us has good people but it seems like they don't have the clout a real Apple Store would have. I took my 2011 iMac 27" (failed graphics card) there after an Apple rep said they would still honor the replacement and they wanted like $700 to fix it. I said no thanks.
 
Fargo! My home town finally hits the big time with a feature on Macrumors :p;)

Don't really understand what this has to do with Apple itself though...does it say anything positive or negative about Apple the company or its retail division? Why are people saying yay or nay to Apple in this?
 
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MyopicPaideia said:
Fargo! My home town finally hits the big time with a feature on Macrumors :p;)

Don't really understand what this has to do with Apple itself though...does it say anything positive or negative about Apple the company or its retail division? Why are people saying yay or nay to Apple in this?
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We are sayIng Apple is evil
 
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garirry said:
No it won't, especially not when games nowadays weigh 100 something GB, which is ridiculous for digital downloads. Physical media FTW.
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Know this is way off topic but...Hmmm...and what sort of physical media will a 100GB game be distributed on then???
 
Well, Apple has been squeezing their independent retailer and repair network for some time now.

With that and the lackluster Mac product line that is languishing without model yearly refreshes, people are not spending as much at Mac retail.

Yes we need independent retail, but I hope Apple releases more Mac products regularly. If they don't I fear that many will jump ship to windows and more and more stores like these and Tekserve will continue to shut down.
 
garirry said:
No it won't, especially not when games nowadays weigh 100 something GB, which is ridiculous for digital downloads. Physical media FTW.
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Original media size is irelavant these days due to the massive size of updates. You are paying for the key in a box....
 
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fontman said:
Apple is a Mess sad to here . their retail locations really like going to a clothing store these days .
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I guess that's their goal though - how is it a mess?

I think the issue is that there's no real point being a reseller because Apple has so many retail stores and they are all damn good! Resellers can't offer better prices (without making next to nothing selling stuff) or better advice, so you might as well go to an Apple store instead...
 
I find this amusing because there's an Apple store/repair place in my town called Simply Mac that's just a local shop (been there for 15 years at least) and has nothing to do with this chain. I actually didn't even know it existed, so my first reaction was "Why is there a story on MacRumors about a little local shop?

Guess it's an obvious name.
 
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garirry said:
No it won't, especially not when games nowadays weigh 100 something GB, which is ridiculous for digital downloads. Physical media FTW.
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Would take 2 hours on my 150mbit/s internet line for 35$/month no limit. 1 hour if I upgrade the line to 300mbit $50/mo. My parents live in the small 1000 people town in the middle of nowhere, it would take them 20min on thier 1GBit/s fiber line.

Warcraft install size is ~75GB, no one I know has bought that on disk for ages or expansions.
 
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PC stores are dying world wide. Its saddening me. I am like a journalist who is seeing magazines shutting right and left.
 
garirry said:
No it won't, especially not when games nowadays weigh 100 something GB, which is ridiculous for digital downloads. Physical media FTW.
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But once you stick the new game disc in, it doesn't even install from the disc, rather it downloads all the content from online due to necessary updates. You have no choice but to grab the nearly 100GB downloadable game. The disc is just to verify you are a legit purchaser.
 
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People who are screaming about how terrible Apple is and how this is the downfall of the company before we even actually have he facts are why we can't have nice things on the Internet. Seriously, its ridiculous folks.

Is i possible Apple is doing this out of a selfish atempt to corner the market on Mac sales? I suppose, but note the following:
- Many of these stores were located in places Apple doesn't have stores that they would be competing against
- Apple has no problem building stores in areas where there are independent Apple retailers without first shutting them down
- Other independent Apple stores aren't being shutdown as well
- Not even all of the Simply Mac stores are being shut down

It doesn't seem likely that this is an Apple being a big bully situation, no matter how much some people assume that to be the truth. Perhaps instead of trying to make the situation fit the narrative, you could, let the facts bulid the narrative instead.

Its more likely, given what we know about this situation as well as GameStop in general PLUS what they actually said, that the reason is poor sales and a focus on other parts of their business.

And even if Apple did decide not to renew the license for these stores it could be for other reasons as well such as customer complaints or the stores not complying with the conditions of the license.

But feel free to keep jumping to conclusions, trust me it doesn't make you look any more believable for future posts.
 
mlody said:
I have 5 Apple stores and 1 authorized reseller within less than 20 miles radius from where I live so no wonder I never heard of this store chain.
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That's an interesting point. I also have three Apple Stores in my area and I had to research Simple Mac to even find out more about them. It appears they were a smaller chain that didn't draw a large enough of an audience to stay alive over time.
 
Rafagon said:
And Internet speeds won’t increase? You think they’ve stagnated and will just stay where they are?

There was a time not too long ago when new versions of OS X were distributed on DVD. I’m sure we didn’t think then that entire OS upgrades would become digital downloads as quickly as they did.
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People with good networks just presume the rest of the world does, and that they will improve as the tech does - not always the case. Even where I am, in a large town (250k+ people) in the middle of England I can still only get 12mb down and 1mb up. Fibre isn't available in my estate for no real reason other than lack of interest by British Telecom as my town is "ticked" for coverage despite 10k houses in the middle not having access to fibre. I can only imagine that many areas "in the sticks" have it far worse. Incidentally my town is being used for the rollout of 1gb broadband by BT, which I also won't be able to get - the tech may be there but the coverage isn't.

I would love for consoles to return to cartridges and no updates, I often find I can't play a game for an evening because some multiple gig update has been released which I don't even want, (which also happens to wipe half my created team data on Pro Evo). Thanks Microsoft.
 
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garirry said:
No it won't, especially not when games nowadays weigh 100 something GB, which is ridiculous for digital downloads. Physical media FTW.
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Download speeds and storage sizes get faster and bigger every year. And storage is kind of a moot point when even many of the disc versions of the game transfer over the whole game to the system. There was a time people said that streaming movies would never work because of the data. Look at Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, and so on. A large number of games are already sold via download only and that number will only get bigger.
 
ComSense said:
Look them up on Glassdoor.com. It's not often you see a company so thoroughly hated by its own employees.

Allow me to add that they do NOT represent most independent Apple-authorized resellers and service providers.* From what I hear, SimplyMac was fine when it was a small business with couple of locations in the Salt Lake City area. It's when they got bought out by Game Stop and turned into a national chain that things went down the toilet FAST.

(* I may be biased by the fact that I own one.)
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Nothing that GameStop touches can be a positive experience to anyone than the profiteers way up top.

Look what they did in the games industry, a very despicable company!

Glassed Silver:ios
 
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I feel bad for people that cant do their own tech support or live too far from a genius bar but I have no idea how they have even stayed around this long. And now that apple means 300 skus to stock instead of 25 thats gotta be the final coffin nail.
 
Glassed Silver said:
Nothing that GameStop touches can be a positive experience to anyone than the profiteers way up top.

Look what they did in the games industry, a very despicable company!

Glassed Silver:ios
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I agree. GameStop really is run poorly. They have lack of knowledgeable and inconsistent employees, they offer zero benefits for the gamer and they offer horrible trade in returns for games.

In my opinion, I think game stop is slowly dying. The Only real advantage they have, is that there aren't very many media stores that will allow for trade-ins for games and pre-orders for new hardware. More specifically, strictly for the gamer that GameStop offers.
 
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