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Apple has announced a grand reopening date of September 24 for four of its U.S. retail locations, including stores at Market Common Clarendon in Arlington, Virginia, Brea Mall in Brea, California, Arrowhead Towne Center in Glendale, Arizona, and Stoneridge Shopping Center in Pleasanton, California. Apple's new store in Birmingham, England will also open on the same day while its Bullring store permanently closes.

Each store will open this Saturday at 10:00 a.m. local time, complete with Apple's next-generation retail layout, including The Avenue, Genius Grove, The Forum, The Plaza, and The Boardroom, coupled with some combination of large glass doors, sequoia wood shelves, indoor trees, light boxes extending the length of the ceiling, and large digital screens for product marketing.

clarendon_hero.jpg
Apple opened its Clarendon store in 2001 as one of its first retail locations

Apple Clarendon opened in December 2001 as one of the company's first retail locations, retaining its classic black facade with two Apple logos for nearly fifteen years before closing for renovations in April. The store will remain located at 2700 Clarendon Boulevard in the Market Common Clarendon complex, a less than five mile drive from downtown Washington D.C.

Apple Brea Mall will be moving to a new space within the shopping mall, and Apple Arrowhead will be relocating to a new unit within its outdoor shopping center. Likewise, Apple Stoneridge will be moving into a larger 9,991-square-foot space recently vacated by clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch, according to building permits filed with the City of Pleasanton earlier this year.

thefashionmallatkeystone_hero.jpg
Apple's all-new store at The Fashion Mall at Keystone in Indianapolis

September has been an eventful month for Apple retail, including two new stores in Mexico City and Hong Kong and thirteen grand reopenings announced so far: two locations on September 2, four locations on September 10, three locations on September 16, and four locations on September 24. Meanwhile, Apple Pentagon City in Arlington will close for renovations starting September 25.

Apple is in the process of renovating several of its stores with next-generation designs inspired by Jony Ive, with progress ramping up ahead of the holiday shopping season. All new stores opened since mid 2015 share the revamped design language, including the latest flagship locations at Union Square in San Francisco and at the World Trade Center transit hub in New York City.

Update: Apple Chandler Fashion Center is also moving to a new location on September 24.

Article Link: Next-Generation Apple Stores Opening in Arlington, Brea, Chandler, Glendale, and Pleasanton on September 24
 
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pat500000

Suspended
Jun 3, 2015
8,523
7,515
Nothing encouraging about Apple lately. Just another opened up shop for more sales.
 

Mizouse

macrumors 6502
Nov 5, 2014
425
638
I hope they improved on the Apple Store in Pleasanton, I HATE going there. It's always so damn crowded! Even worse than the old SF Union square store.
 

AdamJD

macrumors regular
Mar 5, 2009
161
134
It can't be just me. (Open invite to say it is.)

I've been to the "new" Sherman Oaks location. I'm sure there's great technology behind the new glass doors, lighting, etc., but the appearance barren, uninspired and bland. Completely cold and uninviting. It feels like the temporary stores that go up around holiday time (except no color)...complete with boring and bugly symmetrical wooden tables throughout the expansive space. No color...no warmth. To top it off, as usual, nobody asked if I needed any help.

The original design had color, interesting and inspiring signs, and cute desks with round chairs for kids to sit at. It was inclusive and felt like it was bringing people together.

At least there's one less person that will be visiting the store...more room for the rest of you.
 

CrystalQuest76

Suspended
Dec 14, 2015
640
717
West Cost A Lot
The original design had color, interesting and inspiring signs, and cute desks with round chairs for kids to sit at. It was inclusive and felt like it was bringing people together.

I fondly remember those days. When ever i visited the mall, I would stop in the Apple store and listen to conversations between geniuses and customers/potential customers and learn new tricks. I would sometimes time my visits with presentations on advanced tricks of iMovie, Keynote or Adobe products. Those in-store presentations were also a great opportunity to network with other professionals for both work and share techniques.

The original stores were very inviting and many visitors felt they could hang out and learn. Several of the stores I entered even had presentation areas where experts would explain how to do advanced tasks with Apple applications and select third-party apps. All of these things brought people in and they eventually bought products. It was also a time when geniuses appeared to have total expertise over the Macintosh's and how they were used. Customers at the time appeared to be much more interested in using the products to produce content.

Those were the earlier days when Apple executives felt they needed to woo people in and soft sell the products. Before the days popular days of the iPod.

What was discovered is that the stores would fill up with people not buying things and some potential customers would not want to enter the crowded stores. Its a hard numbers game now and reaching measurable and definable sales goals.

Those stores always felt crowded, but they were also fun. Now, they feel cold and lack personality. Of course the goal of the store, any store, is to sell and move product. And they do seem to be meeting that goal, otherwise the executives would not likely be making the changes that they are.
 
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JackANSI

macrumors 6502a
Feb 3, 2011
558
413
If wireless is the future, I expect these updated stores to not be connected by wires to anything.
 

britboyj

macrumors 6502a
Apr 8, 2009
814
1,086
The Willow Bend Plano store just opened with this ******** concept. The lack of an actual Genius Bar is insane. Absolutely nutter butters. Now I have to talk to three people who think they're hot **** for working at an Apple Store just to check in, THEN I have to wait for 20 ****ing minutes past my appointment to even talk to someone to do a basic pass. If they (I assume they're an FRS) can't fix it, then I talk to actual Genius.

All of this while sitting on some weird, bizarre wooden cube thing.

The reason the bar existed was to make it feel like the person you were talking to was actually doing a job. Like they actually worked there. The "oh but it's conversational and friendly" line is a distraction. It's so you don't yell at them because they can't get a real engineering or IT career and don't actually know how to fix your phone.

Full disclaimer: I worked for Apple for five years, got a signed letter from Steve, both retail and corporate.
 

44267547

Cancelled
Jul 12, 2016
37,642
42,491
it will look thinner and you need courage to shop there

A really silly, frivolous comment on your behalf. The fact Apple is opening more stores, increases the availability of more resources and options for the customer when they need a Store in reach.
 

g33k

macrumors member
May 12, 2015
75
34
Cool and all, but can we just get some updated Macs too?

I plan on breaking down and buying a 15" rMBP, with a dGPU, in a year and a half and would like updated internals with my $2500, please. I'm fine with the connectivity, look and all. It is still beautiful, no need to remove anything or make it thinner. Just give us DDR4, newer Intel Processors, and for christ sake, not a dGPU that is hella old and with crummy 2GBs of VRAM.

It's actually genuinely sad that Apple is so negligent to do anything to their Macs.
 

CrystalQuest76

Suspended
Dec 14, 2015
640
717
West Cost A Lot
Cool and all, but can we just get some updated Macs too?

Lots of complaints that Apple has not announced new Macs. No one seems to have stopped and considered that a great machine is a great machine whether its based on a two-year or one-year old design. The two-year old design is fantastic. Just save your money; its not a crime.
 

britboyj

macrumors 6502a
Apr 8, 2009
814
1,086
Lots of complaints that Apple has not announced new Macs. No one seems to have stopped and considered that a great machine is a great machine whether its based on a two-year or one-year old design. The two-year old design is fantastic. Just save your money; its not a crime.

People don't care about the design, but Mac hardware is now woefully outdated compared to their competitors.
 

sza

macrumors 6502a
Dec 21, 2010
569
855
A really silly, frivolous comment on your behalf. The fact Apple is opening more stores, increases the availability of more resources and options for the customer when they need a Store in reach.

You just made 100% correct but useless comment.
 
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