This past weekend Apple celebrated it’s tenth anniversary with the opening of a new store design. For a couple of days now, the internet has been buzzing about what the new stores were going to look like. Was Apple going to release a major product to celebrate the 10th anniversary? Many ideas and theories were flying around the Web, but nobody really had any idea what was going to be behind the black curtains that hung in the windows. McLean, Virginia was the location and the party was about to start.
The big unveiling of the new store design came and what did people see when they walked in? iPad 2s. A whole store full of iPads that were sitting right next to each product that Apple had for sale in the store. The iPad 2s were set up to give information about the products that people were looking to buy. The iPads were running a custom software that Apple created for the “customer service experience” and apparently it is less likely to get tampered with than the regular iPad software if it were installed on these units. The laptops were connected via a special cable that was also connected to the product on display. The iPad 2′s would serve as a simple, but informative customer service representative allowing the customers to browse the specs, features and the price.
Disconnecting the cable will set off an alarm and stealing the iPad 2 would set off a homing device that would “call home” to Apple until it’s found. Looks like Apple has figured everything out, including ways of selling products without actually employing anyone. We’ll see how this goes, but if it takes off, it could revolutionize how shopping is done.
