How Apple Store Seduces You With the Tilt of Its Laptops | Hacker News Reader

How Apple Store Seduces You With the Tilt of Its Laptops

forbes.com

132 pointstortilla84 comments

The Apple section of the Best Buy stores around here are set up like an Apple Store... all the Apple products set up, turned on, connected to the internet on wooden tables with plenty of room to play with them.

At the same time, almost all the Windows laptops are either running a demo app showing specs and videos you can't quit to the desktop from, have been rebooted by someone and are stuck on the welcome screen waiting for a password you don't know, or are turned off.

I haven't been able to buy a Windows laptop in stores for a couple years. They only stock junk with dim, low-DPI 1366x768 screens, and don't let you try them out enough to tell if you want to work on that computer every day for the next few years. I've ended up relying on online reviews and videos to pick models, then using manufacturers' sites to custom build them with decent screens and SSDs (14" 1600x900 in my HP Envy right now).

If I were forced to replace my laptop today, I'd be mighty tempted to make a switch to a MBA or MBP, even if just to run Windows on it. I hope the retina displays and Win8 release push the rest of the manufacturers to build some decent alternatives next year.

I used to work the PC dept at BestBuy in Highschool and I never noticed that the apple store goes out of it's way to make sure you can play with and try the computers but the windows machines are never (almost) in a situation you can play with.

Why is that? My guess would be that it's related to the bloatware on the PC. There is probably some agreements where they agree to have their logo and application name displayed in store on the slideshow. Or something else? Different marketing strategy by MS? Can MS really think the slideshow of bloatware logo and specifications are going to help sell?

Microsoft just provides operating system keys and logo stickers to OEMs. They have little to no control over how computers are sold, marketed, or presented in stores. Those demo apps and preinstalled software come from the manufacturer.

Of course, I forgot that somehow, I've been living in Apple world too long. In that case though, doesn't the same still apply to the other OEMs who seem to want their products presented this way?

If they're all running an unlocked Windows shell, there's really nothing that differentiates them from the rest of the pack.

The first thing anyone looks at on a laptop(unless it's closed) is the screen. And often, there is little to no branding on the keyboard and screen.

So when you have a row of Asus, Acer, Compaq and HP ultrabooks/laptops sitting in a row, each OEM needs to find a way to differentiate themselves from the rest. Apple can present the unlocked shell because nobody else sells OSX devices.

Wouldn't that just need a branded wallpaper? They preload so much junk anyway, one extra image won't make any difference...

Wallpaper, screen saver, and home page, I would think. If you want to go over the top, name the account and the hard disk, too.

Finally, if you have style, create your own set of system sounds.

If you go to the manufacturer's own stores (e.g. sony or samsung), their presentation is quite similar to Apple's.

I'm going to make a point of trying to search out some of these other manufacturers stores. I've never seen any in the flesh in the cities I've lived in (Midwest, Midsouth). I think there might be a Sony store somewhere nearby. Thanks for the reminder of these other stores.

Yes, I've had wonderful experience with Samsung store, they've even let me go 'backstage'.

The answer is, in part, that Best Buy and other retail stores are addicted to kickbacks from manufacturers. If a product in a retail store is anywhere other than sitting on an obscure shelf, it's because the manufacturer paid the store for more prominent placement. Special displays like the Apple mini-stores and iPhone kiosks in Best Buys only exist because Apple kicks back a lot of money to buy them. Retailers can't experiment with better displays without undermining a lucrative profit center. Apple can structure its stores the way it does because they only exist to sell their own goods.

Do you know that apple kicks back? I'd think that apples own retail presence would give them the ability to say, "You sell our products this way on this table or you don't get to sell our products". Apple's strong retail presence has to give them more negotiating power than most other CE companies.

> Do you know that apple kicks back? I'd think that apples own retail presence would give them the ability to say, "You sell our products this way on this table or you don't get to sell our products". Apple's strong retail presence has to give them more negotiating power than most other CE companies.

They absolutely do - they pay for the floor space in retail stores. They also have their own reps who manage the products there; performing software updates to new OS versions, installing new demo apps (i.e. iWork, iLife, etc), and managing the ticketing.

They also provide training to staff (in-store and online) and have a strong preference that only trained staff sell their products.

(I did a short stint in retail here in Australia between jobs when I was studying; so this is first-hand).

There are still plenty of places in the US without an Apple store, but there are Best Buys everywhere.

Even if Apple didn't sell laptops, you know they would want their own little corner for the iPad. The last time I was in my local BB, the Apple section looked like a little Apple store (as always). The other tablets were lined up shoulder to shoulder and locked into plastic cases bolted to the shelves. Some were setup so you could actually pick them up. Quite a few were dead (probably uncharged). Other than a basic grouping by screen size, it was a "Here's a bunch of tablets, good luck" situation. It's no surprise they don't sell too well.

I'd imagine BB loves the Apple stores. It gives them something that no one else has... a little Apple store. Even if they have to kowtow to all of Apple's demands, it must be a good deal. When an Apple laptop sells (lets say at an average of $1200), how much do you think Best Buy gets of that? $50? $100?

When a $400 or $800 PC laptop sells, how much do you think Best Buy gets? $15? $25? Even if BB gets the same percentage for all laptops, or even a lower percentage for Apple... I'm guessing the higher average sales prices makes up for it.

Apple's margins are famous, and if I was Best Buy I'd want in any way I could.

It's actually a pretty good deal for Apple too. Some beautiful Apple computers, fun to play with, and well setup. Just 10 feet away there is a sea of identical PCs, often with cheap plastic and poor screens. There are some good ones in there (and maybe promoted on isle caps), but still.

Apple's margins are famous, for sure, but Apple reseller margins are basically nonexistent.

Service and sales have withered on the vine, support is all that's left.

All that said, Apple accessories and third party accessories? Yes ma'am! Sickening margin.

It's also about attracting in store the sort of affluent buyer who can afford to buy Apple, who is also likely to have more disposable income to spend on other stuff in the same store.

> When an Apple laptop sells (lets say at an average of $1200), how much do you think Best Buy gets of that? $50? $100?

Technically, none. Best Buy doesn't mark up Apple computers at all; Apple pays kickbacks after the sale of devices. (At least, I'm assuming that nothing has changed since 2009).

May seem pedantic, but from an SCM standpoint, it's an important difference.

Not to abuse the "citation needed" meme, but can you point to any proof of kickbacks?

"If a product in a retail store is anywhere other than sitting on an obscure shelf, it's because the manufacturer paid the store for more prominent placement. "

I don't doubt this is true for most commodity pcs but I wonder if Apple isn't the exception here. I'm sure they do pay setup and material costs on the special displays themselves but I doubt they are paying special kickbacks above that for better placement.

For one thing they don't have to pay special kickbacks they could just sell their gear to best buy for less. We know that isn't the case because we can confirm that the margins for Apple stuff at Best Buy is pretty terrible because the commission staff there always steer you towards something else.

I remember in the early 90s going to most of the computer shops in the local area and having fully usable display models.

It was rare to see a display computer that didn't have MS Paint running with the previous person's doodle sitting at pride of place in the middle of a 320x240 screen (which felt like about a billion pixels back then).

In fact I remember going to one of these stores when I was about 8 and asking the salesman about which games were available on the PC, at which point he promptly dropped the system out of Win 3.1 and into DOS , loaded up "The Secret of Monkey Island" and left me to play for about an hour while my parents went off and did some other shopping.

That was probably the point at which I decided I wanted my next system to be a PC rather than a Sega Genesis.

I suppose Apple is in a similar position, most people are roughly familiar with Windows and are mainly shopping around for specs/price. You could waste a lot of time playing with a system and asking the salesmans advice only to go off and buy the thing on amazon.

With Apple devices they don't care where or when you buy it since they take money either way but since most people are not going to be familiar with OS X there is a definitely an advantage to selling "the experience".

It's the same with cameras, iPods, and everything else at a lot of retailers. They often aren't even charged. Why even have a real one on display then?

I had a somewhat similar experience with the Apple Store though. I wanted the 15" MacBook Pro with the matte, high-res screen, but my local Apple store doesn't stock those except for the highest end model. So they "lost" a sale, but they don't care because I'm still ordering it from the same company. That's the power of owning the whole channel.

  10 PRINT "I AM AN ELITE PRE-TEEN GEEK IN THE EIGHTIES!"
  20 GOTO 10

Same here - Los Angeles, on Pico and Sawtelle.

I've got one worse. I went to the Apple Store in Bellevue today. Then I went to the Microsoft store. A bunch of either awful disgusting looking, heavy laptops including one with, I kid you not, a backlit "Turbo" button, or a few Ultrabooks that were nice, but no match for even an only slightly more expensive Air. (Save for the Asus Zenbook which I can't wait to see this years' model of).

Then, I saw an employee carrying around two very nice looking Ultrabooks (The new Samsung Series 9 and XPS 13 [both of which, incidentally are very hard to find on the manufacturers websites]). They were not out for display anyway. I played with them a bit and then incredulously asked "Uh, why don't you have these out, they're slick."

The reply was "We just got those in yesterday or the day before". That is something I can't imagine happening in an Apple store.

> The reply was "We just got those in yesterday or the day before". That is something I can't imagine happening in an Apple store.

Because the apple store only gets new machines once a year... so thats a bit of a loaded remark.

I went into the apple store in Basingstoke, UK the morning after the keynote. They had a Retina MBP out (only one, it is Basingstoke after all, and not for sale) for people to play with. They were taking orders for pickup in the next week or two.

Indeed. New Apple releases are events, and staff are paid to be able to get everything ready in time. It's not really feasible to do that every time some partner releases a new laptop that's not had any hype or media attention and no-one is going to be coming in the next day demanding to see it.

It's a luxury Apple have that other business models can't really afford to emulate.

Why make apologies for crappy retail management?

It amazes me how non-Apple phones are sold just about everywhere I go. I often go to check them out, and it's a plastic shell with a sticker for a screen. The shortsightedness of this sales approach is astounding. It's not even that this is a particularly ingenious move by Apple, it's just common sense.

Apple store employee here. This indeed does happen although after a while you get pretty good at judging a 70 deg angle without an app.

From anecdotal experience, it really does make a massive difference in the level of interaction customers have with the products. Even if people just come in because they haven't been in an Apple store before, the first thing they do is push the screen back and by that point they've already started interacting with the computer.

Question, every Apple store I've ever seen is crazy crowded all day, do you frequently re-adjust screens durning the day (I've never seen you do that) or is this just a start of the day trick?

Tend to do general tidying all throughout the day. Its normally if you walk past and nobody is using it/requires attention then just straighten it up a little bit. There is no set time during the day where everyone adjusts the display though.

I never noticed that setting it at 70 degrees is done on purpose. I have always noticed and commented on the fact that Apple has paid immense attention to the simple experience of adjusting the screen. It's always so effortless, and never too tight or loose.

A big part of that is that Apple controls the horizontal and vertical (sorry if you are too young to get the reference). I would imagine they have customized store builds that they can easily restore to a normal state when someone royally screws it up. Then there's probably a level of reasonable user level protection setup (no admin access). I've never tried going into an Apple store and tried to do admin type things. I'd be interesting to see how they deal with that.

The contrast is even sharper in other countries. In some places it is a huge cultural no-no to go into a store and start touching stuff. Just try going into a toy store in one of these places with a US-raised kid used to ToysRUs.

The laptops clean themselves up after a few minutes of inactivity. You can even play with most settings in system preferences.

Great! Having never visited an Apple Store, I had no idea. I always thought it's a poor man's job to clean machines/iDevices every night (remotely, of course - but still manually).

The last time I really played with the machines they were locked down quite well. Sure you can play to your hearts content but there is not a whole lot of damage that you can do.

Also, when required they can re-install the machines using a network boot with an ready made image. Pretty much the same way that they rebuild customer machines (if you ever get a reinstall at the genius bar they no longer grab an external hard drive or DVD, they simply plug it into a network cable and network boot it, they then select from a list of options and the re-install happens automatically from there... pretty slick system (BTW, that is how they have all of their diagnostics tools available as well).

Here in Spain the experience outside Apple stores is terrible.

If you go to Worten, or Carrefour and try to use an iPad you will find no Internet(!), with password protected Wifi, it seems they are "saving" money, or they don't want people to use the machines at all, only buy them. The machines have no interesting apps on it.

Just the other day it looked like someone were boycotting the Apple stand on purpose, you will see the Ipad3s with the zoom enabled and other accessibility options enabled, and a stupid ugly customer face as background. It was hard to use the machine at all, and it was energy depleting.

Then I went to an Apple store, wow!, what a difference just adding useful apps and Internet. It seems only natural but it has been carefully orchestrated.

Why do most electronics retailers use empty or powered-off demonstration devices? To reduce costs - from customer theft, employee theft, damage or abuse by prospective customers, etc. At Best Buy, when a customer's kid spills their soda on a laptop or phone, who pays for the hardware? Best buy, the parent, or the manufacturer?

But... how often does that happen? And would one not think that they might - maybe, possibly, just might - sell a few more by having usable computers people can test drive before shelling out $799? The increase in sales might - again, crazy I know - just might help absorb the cost from the occasional spilled soda on a laptop.

Did you not get the consultant's report on inventory shrinkage and oversight? I'll send you another copy along with the Powerpoint presentation. Please review it, we'll be moving forward with standardization on action points 2 through 7.

It helps that Apple stores have an employee density many, many times that of a Best Buy or similar, which means people are unlikely to get away with anything sneaky for too long.

I don't know about electronics specifically and different country issues (I live in Ukraine), but in general store if you would accidentally* break anything then, regardless of store rules, the store can't require customer to pay for it.

*I don't exactly remember about "accidental" part. I suppose that store would be required to prove that action was intentional in court.

In the US we hear "you break it you buy it" a lot, but most retailers will bear the costs in the interests of customer retention.

Of all the things I hate about (typical) Windows PCs (or Linux PCs), I have to say the experience of opening their lid is the worst. I'm used to my MacBook Pro, that requires minimum pressure to open the lid. On the contrary, all other laptops I've tried require to to first hold the bottom and then push the lid backward. If you don't hold the bottom, it will go up 5 inches and lands very hard on the ground.

I damn near wrecked my aunt's new Dell last week the instant I tried to open its screen (to install anti-virus and remove factory junk). If I had used just a little more pressure, her laptop would've landed 3 feet on the floor and would certainly break. Bad fortune for a laptop that hasn't even been booted once...

So I guess a typical Wintel user that is used to these stupid screens would be amazed at how MacBooks are different.

Here in Australia we have a couple of stores (Myer/David Jones) that have an in-store section for Apple products that are setup like Apple Stores, complete with touchable products. Just next to that section are the windows laptops, locked down and unfriendly. Normally the Apple section is far busier.

Yeah, places like jb and dick smith have the same setup, I guess it is a condition from apple to be a seller of their laptops.

In New Zealand, I recently went to JB. I was interested in a tablet, specifically the iPad 3, and I asked the sales person, "What's the difference between the Asus Transformer, and the iPad 3?", to which he replies, "Uhhh... the Operating System?". He kept this up, trying to make me feel like a complete idiot for asking these questions... then when I was about to purchase something he walked off. I then wait 20 minutes, and buy the Transformer, as I wasn't allowed to demo the iPad 3. (seriously?)

I hate those places with a passion, and as a deaf guy I constantly get people just leaving me without any help after I mention for the third time to speak the fuck up. I wish I had an Apple store here, maybe buying things in a store would be more enjoyable :(

I agree: I've moved to the US and the Apple stores here are AWESOME. Staff on hand, everything laid out well - they even encourage you to try out Facetime. Also, the free trainings they offer are actually very useful.

An Apple Store in New Zealand (and possibly other places) would do wonders for the brand - I only switched to Mac after a visit to the US. The next-best-thing we had in Auckland was MagnumMac - it was OK but it was no Apple Store.

The biggest problem with Apple stores at this point is that they are always busy. I remember when the first Apple store opened in my area a few years ago, there were always people there but only a decent number.

Now, it doesn't seem to matter when I go to the Apple stores around me, they're buzzing with tons of activity.

They're absolutely jammed, but you notice that you never have a problem finding an employee to help you? I was at the Apple Store in Hong Kong the other day talking to one of the floor guys as he was ringing me up; he told me they have 150 people on shift in the store at any given time. Granted, the Hong Kong store is massive, but that still seems like an extraordinary number for a single shift.

I remember going to the Apple Store when it opened in my area. It had decent traffic and you could actually get a genius without appointment. Now 7 years later it's totally packed and I don't think the amount of sales has kept pace with the amount of foot traffic. But the foot traffic certainly helps drive sales.

Also, being close to an Apple Store helps other stores as well. I've seen so many parents just leave their kids at the Apple store while they run off to Victoria's Secret or BB&W. That section of the mall is completely busy when before it was just foot traffic going to Macy's or another anchor store.

Someone with a shite attitude like that probably hates his job ... time to complain to his manager and put him out of his misery.

Apple has been partnering with Best Buy for a few years, and I imagine they do the same thing around the world.

It's not a condition though. My local Microcenter sells Apple laptops (always have) and have a little section for them, but it's not run by Apple. It looks like the rest of the store, and isn't laid out like an Apple store.

Here in Colorado there is a Microcenter that sells Apple products. I was talking to one of the managers about the Apple section and he said that he sells less of them than any other brand and they make almost no money on them. Probing a little further it is because the sales guys don't get a high commission on them unlike the other products, and thus they are unloved. Just like most of the other sections of the store the Apple section was almost entirely empty.

I've bought a laptop from Microcenter, and boy was it something I regretted ...

"The difference between Apple and Best Buy"

why not difference between Apple and f.ex. Sony Center which are also designed to engage the customer, let him play with the product? I'm not a fan of Sony, but know many people who liked their stores, that's a better comparison than a supermarket.

Well, it is somewhat relevant to Forbes, since Best Buy has been giving all the indicators of following Circuit City into oblivion and Forbes has commented about it recently. The Apple Store (and Sony Store) is a contrast in how a well tuned, specialized store is better at selling the same product compared to a big box. Which is interesting, considering how long the Big Box retail scene has been considered the death of small independent shops. (Cue Elton John singing about the Circle of Life..)

The Best Buy in my neighborhood is more convenient by about 90m than the Apple Store. But I generally refuse to go to Best Buy for anything that I can't find on a pegboard, like cables or a USB drive. Everything else, I get random unavailability, clueless salespeople, and a really strange mildew smell from the upholstery.

Smells like doom, really.

> a well tuned, specialized store is better at selling the same product compared to a big box.

are there some numbers to support that? I mean, f.ex. no of macbook pro and sony bravia or xbox sold in the supermarkets vs sold in brands' stores? I always get the feeling that such stores exist to keep appearances and attract new customers, not to work as a main selling point. selling 20 laptops through bestbuy is probably way cheaper and quicker than selling 20 laptops through it's own store.

Apple stores are the highest grossing retail stores in the world by a significant margin. Apple Stores produce over $5,600 per square foot. The next highest retailer is Tiffany, at a little under $3,000. The median for the top 20 retailers is well under $1,000 per square foot.

It's important to keep in mind that going into retail looked absolutely ridiculous when Apple announced their first retail store, for some of the reasons you have enumerated. Gateway was what people thought of as a computer retailer, and they were dying. Execution matters.

This is anecdotal, and I haven't worked there for close to 5 years, but back when I was at a mall Apple store, our store was clocking more revenue per square foot than any other store in the (upscale) mall. If I remember correctly, it was by a factor of 2 or more. Granted, it was only a 30 foot store, and the items are pretty big ticket anyway, rent there is more expensive etc etc, but all that being said, Apple stores are REALLY good at selling Apple products.

I once heard that the rent was $6,000 a month for a cart in one of the prime areas at our upscale mall. Usually these sell bamboo plants or cell phone accessories.

I wonder if your store was average for the AAPL universe.

For iphones:

http://allthingsd.com/20120323/best-buy-is-selling-nearly-as...

As far as laptops and computers go I don't know why it'd be cheaper for Apple to sell them through Best Buy. The prices are rigidly controlled and so their margin has to be lower for other retailers then when they sell direct.

I think Apple moves a lot of product through their own stores, but no idea what fraction compared to online or 3rd party. In contrast to Apple stores, where I've regularly seen people buy big ticket items like Macbook Pro, I've never seen anyone actually purchase anything from a Sony store. Maybe that's because I've never seen anyone in a Sony store (ha!).

I can't remember the figures, but at my Apple store interview, they claimed to be one of the top grossing stores in the world (in terms of gross per square foot).

Funny you compare with Sony. Sony has a store in New York (on Madison I think) that I tried to check out a couple times. Except it closes at like 5pm. In New York. A few blocks away there's an Apple store that never closes. As they put, the city that never sleeps needs a store that never sleeps.

Sony stores are not quite Best Buy, but they've only captured about 10% of the experience that makes Apple stores different.

There's only like 2 dozen Sony Retail stores so the bulk of the audience wouldn't be familiar with them. On top of that the Sony stores seem to be based on the Apple experience so the contrast wouldn't be as clear?

the Apple experience is based on the GAP experience, and it's not about contrast, it's about comparing stores that are worth comparing.

Because the story wouldn't produce as many pageviews.

They're trying to compare typical buying experiences. The typical place one buys an Apple laptop is in an Apple store, or Apple-designed section of another store. Sony laptops are much more often sold in the section with the crappy hodgepodge of Windows laptops that any electronics store has.

both products can be bought anywhere including the internet. the main reason branded stores exist at all is the appearance and controlling the experience, engaging with the customer in an environment where the only competing products are of their own brand. bestbuy type stores work the opposite way: fill it with lots of products of various brands and prices so anybody can walk out with something and the staff can redirect the client to the competition at any time. btw sony sections in the tv dept of many markets are also better looking.

On a very related note, "The Ikea Effect" : http://hbr.org/web/2009/hbr-list/ikea-effect-when-labor-lead...

Funny how they put it like adding an egg was adding human contact.

The fact is that a cake without eggs needs artificial eggs(industry products with natural eggs are very dangerous so they have to replace it with shit). The product tastes very different, is not as healthful (in fact is wrong for your health).

They attribute the effect to a minor cause.

I love how Apple takes common sense (in retrospect) to extreme levels. Not only do they do that well, they excel in thinking out of the box, for the simplest of things. Color me impressed.

To add another anecdote:

I happened to be leafing through a womens' mag while waiting for an appointment recently and there was an article on simple ways to save on spending.

The article said to never try on clothes when you are window shopping or "just looking" at a store. The reasoning was similar to this article on Apple: When you try something on and see it on yourself in the mirror, you now own that piece of clothing in your mind. And by not purchasing it, you actually experience a loss. As if you owned the item and now it was taken away from you.

This emotion is ostensibly more "painful" than simply wanting an item and not purchasing it.

After reading the article I still am not sure exactly why Apple sets the screens at some specific angle at store opening. To entice people to touch them doesn't quite sound right since the angles will all be adjusted rather quickly. And do reps keep re-setting them throughout the day? The author doesn't say. The author also fails to mention one major reason why shoppers feel compelled to touch Apple products and develop a like for them while at the Apple store: Apple makes very touchable and likable products!

I think that this angle is set so that person standing near the table would look at the display at 90 degree angle, just like with general monitor setup advice (monitor perpendicular to the line of sight, line of sight ends at the top border of the display). Since people are standing, not sitting, then notebook display should be a bit tilted backwards.

The screens are at the wrong angle for a standing customer, so customers will tilt the screen further back, starting the 'hands on' experience. Th reps re-set them when they aren't otherwise occupied.

There is an impression that Apple does this for you, for everyone, as a completely benign and sane sales point for which they go lengths to acchieve.

It's false.

It's what YOU, the end consumer of Apple products, pay for - random people checking out their products. It's in YOUR price tag.

I personally don't like MY money being distributed that way.

How ridiculous.

We can say the exact same thing about test drives, trial subscriptions, free samples at Costco, etc etc. Any type of "sampling", or indeed any marketing, can be said to be paying customers subsidizing non-paying customers.

All of the above cases are completely absurd points to make, including in relation to Apple.

I'm not downplaying that practice; of course it is common.

What I do have trouble is the general sentiment that they go out of their way to help you, and it is just embedded in the price tag. And the blame for that is not even on Apple side - it's on you.

And, like I've stated, I just PERSONALLY don't like it, as a general practice.

I find this statement utter nonsense.

The cost of an Internet line and some maintenance is negligible with the cost of the store itself. Apple sells much more laptops that anybody else per store square meter(from 10x to 100x) with a profit margin higher than anybody else.

The cost are much smaller than the competence, with switched on pcs than nobody could use(password protected).

It seems common sense it not so common after all.

However if doing all this means that they sell more laptops then they get better economies of scale and lower per item prices, which drives down the cost.

True, also probably only to a certain extent.

I have not really studied Apple, but last few years I have been checking out their laptop lines, I could only see cost increase of whatever is the current line.

What cost increases? Hasn't the price stayed roughly the same, or gone down in the case of the MacBook Airs? The exception being when an entirely new product line has been introduced (like the Unibody MBPs and now the Retina MBPs).

Is getting a customer to interact with its product really considered terribly clever or Apple-esque? Isn't this the goal of any decent marketer? I like looking at electronics at walmart, but it frustrates the hell out of me that I can't USE them. I'm not going to buy something unless I can test drive it first.

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