Apple Shifts from Genius Bars to Genius Groves, Hoping Patrons Linger | Hacker News Reader

Apple Shifts from Genius Bars to Genius Groves, Hoping Patrons Linger

nytimes.com

50 pointsuladzislau33 comments

I suspect this is more of a response to demand—the genius bar at my local mall is typically booked days in advance.

Same here And even if you have an appointment, you have to wait.

> even if you have an appointment, you have to wait

Am I the only one who finds this vain and disrespectful? I'm on time to my meetings. I'm on time to dinner after boozy brunch. Yet Apple can't help but overcommit when I take the time to schedule with them?

Go ahead and charge me a $20 cancellation fee for a "premium appointment". But don't present your brand with all the poise and discipline of a teen Hollywood wannabe.

Do you think they can estimate ahead of time how long each appointment will take?

"Your call is important to us, you are seventh in the queue and the call will be answered in 41 minutes to 1 hour." Yeah, no it won't.

Accurately enough, yes. As long as they go over the actual time it takes, everything is fine.

I don't see how any redesign could help with that. There is only a single Apple Store in Berlin and it's probably similar elsewhere in Europe.

The only way to get an appointment is to get one immediately once they make new ones available at midnight.

The flagship Apple store in London is getting a similar makeover: http://idoxpa.westminster.gov.uk/online-applications/applica...

They're taking away the mezzanine floor at the front of the store to turn the main section just inside the entrance into a big, open two-storey high square space (which sounds similar to the glass-roofed space at the existing Covent Garden store).

Adding more space to sit sounds like the approach taken by luxury boutiques, which often have chairs and sofas for customers (or, more likely, their spouses) to sit and relax.

I wonder if this move is to suit a new class of products. "... 42-foot-tall glass doors that slide open to expose the interior to the street" A car dealership perhaps?

It's for the iPad Pro 2.

42' tall is quite excessive for a car.

An iMech?

I'll buy from Apple if it's an iMech. You know it will look stylish and unlike almost every other robot movie around. Because that's what they do best.

Maybe it's 42 1-foot tall doors.

The next generation just wants to flow.

What does that mean?

Nothing really, except expressing the desire of whoever invented that phrase to be perceived as possessing some deep insight into the thoughts of "next generation".

Which is like saying "for humans" meaning that you want to be perceived as possessing some deep insight into what all people want products to be like.

Wander in, get service, wander out. Scheduling is an interruption.

With the "wooden cubes and real leather medicine balls" it's sounds like they're taking a page from the fast food restaurant design manual, and completely misunderstanding it. Uncomfortable places to sit don't say, linger a while, they say, get your stuff and get out.

This article is nonsense -- but if you're in SF visit the store, the space feels good to walk through.

So I guess they're aiming these stores at the (fairly large) group of visitors that use the Apple Stores to mess around with the technology and use it in their social gatherings rather than for buying any products from.

The can call them iTemples.

Where one go to get ones iD stroked?

Real leather? Sounds like some Burberry BS.

Doom!

If they put in a bar to serve drinks then they can go full circle.

Surprised to see an Apple related thread with so few comments!

Apple is probably the most pretentious company that I've ever had the displeasure of knowing about.

I'll never meet anybody "at Apple". I may meet them at an Apple store but if anyone says the words "at Apple" then the meeting is off because I never want to speak to you again.

So you'll meet someone at a Best Buy store, but snub them if they say "at Best Buy"? Or a Starbucks coffee shop is OK, but "at Starbucks" is not? I'm not understanding here.

He went overboard with the "never want to speak to you again" bit but he's not wrong.

We say "at McDonalds" or "at Starbucks" because these places have a sort of casual ubiquity that's inserted them into our daily lives. We say "at the Apple store" because that's what feels right based its place in our daily experience.

A marketing guy trying to goad us into giving the Apple store that same casual ubiquity without "earning" it just by dropping some leather couches and potted plants into a store is pretentious. It feels wrong and we know it in an uncanny valley sort of way.

I don't think you should be down voted but I think you're wrong. The comment is clearly aspirational and reasonable. To get all uppity (the op) about it is kinda ridiculous.

Uppity, like Apple?

I don't think I can reach those heights. (Remember those Mac vs PC commercials? You can't get much more uppity than that.)

In Vancouver we would always say, "Let's meet at Eatons", or, "VPL", or, "The Bay", or heck, even, "Let's meet at Mickey Dee's" (Mcdonalds).

Do a good enough job creating an inviting public space, that people frequent, then yes, I think it's a reasonable goal to say, "Let's meet at Apple" - you've got to aspire to something, and that seems like a pretty worthwhile goal.

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