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Apple has announced the Apple retail store chain is coming soon to Melbourne, Australia. The store is part of a $200 million redevelopment the city is currently undergoing.

The new Apple Store will feature a glass atrium ceiling, and will be adjacent to a hotel and shopping complex connected by a clear, circular-panel walkway.  I’m really excited to see Apple expand further across the globe with their first store in Oceania. It’s exciting news seeing something from Apple hit this close to home (okay, 2000KM is not that close).

Now Apple, where’s an Apple Store for Auckland City, New Zealand?

Read [AppleInsider] Via [Gizmodo]

Verizon is taking a play out of Apple’s book (yeah I know, Dell is doing it too). Verizon has flooded mailboxes (nothing new), gone door to door and even handed out free ice cream as it seeks to sell its new FiOS television, telephone and high-speed Internet service. Now, they are opening up stores in shopping malls to show off their offerings to consumers.

The stores, called Verizon Experience, provide a snazzy setting for people to toy with new gadgets, play computer games, lounge in front of high-definition TV sets and see how they’re all enhanced by FiOS, its multibillion dollar effort to replace the copper wires of its telephone network with high-capacity fiber-optic lines.

Verizon opened its 5,000-square-feet Fairfax store Dec. 15 inside Fair Oaks Mall with little advertisement or fanfare. On a recent weekday afternoon, the 20 or so staff members outnumbered customers. Verizon has so far opened only one other store in Southlake, Texas, near Dallas. Both stores are located in Verizon’s most developed FiOS markets.

The FiOS infrastructure is incredibly expensive: the company estimates it will spend $23 billion just to rewire its network. FiOS TV has been launched in parts of seven states: Texas, California, Virginia, Maryland, Florida, Massachusetts and New York. FiOS Internet service is available in parts of 16 states. The company said it has about 118,000 TV subscribers nationally out of more than 1 million who are able to receive the service.

Read [Washington Post]

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, Apple has a “special one-day shopping event” in store for us - and they’ve posted this teaser to pump up the hype.  Last year, Apple lowered the prices on both Macs and accessories.  MacRumors’ forums have got the scoop from last year.  Any guesses on what they’ve got for us this year?

Via [MacRumors]

Apple will open its third Manhattan retail store at SL Green Realty Corp.’s retail joint venture at West 34th Street.

“The team had to negotiate more than six separate transactions and explore the outer reaches of the New York City building code with help of several consultants,” Andrew Mathias, SL Green’s chief investment officer, said on Tuesday during a third-quarter conference call with analysts.

The deal for the Apple Store west of Fifth Avenue began with discussions of a 50-by-100 square-foot floor plan but the store will end up being 50 to 75 feet by 100 feet.

Apple’s Manhattan locations are known for their innovative designs, including a glass cube entryway at Apple’s underground Fifth Avenue location and a glass staircase at the computer maker’s Soho store.

Read [Washington Post]

In a move that is unlike their strategy in the past, Apple is still selling the old iPod nanos in stores - remember those ones that actually looked like iPods?  I walked into an Apple store today and was not only greeted with an iPod nano at every display computer, but some of them were actually the old models.  Typically, Apple does a good job at selling out of inventory before the new supply rolls in - it looks like they’re approaching this one with a new strategy.

Welcome to a new segment on Gadgetell called Head to Head where we take everyday things, and match them up against each other.

Well, Dell officially just declared retail-war on Apple by launching their first store at NorthPark Center in Dallas, TX (an Apple Store location).  Luckily, we had a chance to head over there, several times actually, to take in the atmosphere and put it Head to Head with the Apple Store.  Check out the commentary below divided up by Design/Layout, Atmosphere, Customer Service.

Design/Layout - We all know how Apple Stores are laid out.  They have that cutting edge look to them; white, black, silvers, and wood.  So what about the Dell store?  Dell actually did a nice job with the store…but we have many complaints.  First, the laptop computers are all lined up on a glowing blue counter-top against the wall on the right side of the store.  Now if this actually drew any attention to the laptops then this would be a good design.  Instead, the blue kind of repels you.  It’s actually kind of junky looking.  Being the sticklers that we are, we also noticed that laptops were turned in all different directions from people playing with them.  When we moved a laptop in an Apple Store and walked away, a representative was already straightening it out again.

Read on for more of the Head to Head.

The store features a bunch of at home/office scenarios for the customer to try out.  When you walk in, they’ve got their gaming scenario right there...front and center decked out with their new 30-inch monitor (3007WFP) and the bad-ass XPS 700.  I won’t bore you walking through the other scenarios (gaming, digital photography, digital video, home office, home theater), but there is a complaint.  All of these are set up in aisles, making it seem like a Best Buy-type place, definitely not as spacious as an Apple Store.

Atmosphere - The feeling that you get when you walk into an Apple Store has been un-paralleled by anyone else… so naturally, Dell is going to have a hard time doing it.  Starting from the outside of the store, the sign was a bit bizarre.  It was a cloudy blue sign that looked like it was lit up, only not.  I would expect to see more of a bold Dell logo instead of a faint one.  One thing that we really liked was the 3 LCD TVs that were stacked on top of each other in the window.  It gave the store the cutting-edge look that they’re bound to be going for.  Once you walk in to the store, you first notice the gigantic, wall-sized Dell logo in the back of the store since it’s glowing blue (just like the laptop counter).  The designer definitely didn’t hold back on the blue, did they?

Like I mentioned above, the space was very limited on the left side of the store (the scenarios took up too much precious space).  Each scenario had a divider between them that really cut off your view of the entire store.  We would suggest removing the dividers and giving it more of an open-air feeling.

Customer Service - Apple’s got the Genius Bar, Dell’s got the Dell On Call...bar.  Awkwardly placed in the back of the Dell Store is the store’s tech support desk.  If you’ve got any type of software or hardware issue, you can bring your computer in there and they’ll diagnose the problem...and we’re assuming this is covered by your regular warranty that you can buy with your computer.  The representatives in the front of the store seemed to be knowledgeable on most things, but since the pricing of things like the LCD TVs isn’t listed, even the sales guy had to look it up for me by picking up a Dell Direct Store Weekly Specials pamphlet.  Get to know the merchandise guys!

In our famous pictures found here, you can see that they simply have too many sales people standing around.  If you’re just going to stand there, then you’re going to scare people away.  Go stand on the sides of the store or hang out in the On Call room in the back.

And finally, you knew we had to touch on the no-inventory thing.  Dell decided not to carry any inventory in their stores, so if you’re planning on walking out of the store with a new computer, you better hit up an Apple Store.  Dell has done well with their direct model, so they’re sticking to it.  If they’re not going to sell you a computer then may we suggest some sort of workstation (like they used to have in old computer stores) where you can customize and order your machine?  Just our two cents.

Of course we were going to be hard on Dell, after all, they are the new guys on the block in the mall.

This week, we were lucky enough to make it over to the brand spankin’ new Dell store located at NorthPark Center in Dallas, TX to snap some pictures for you.  If you missed the news a little over a month ago, Dell announced that they would begin opening up flagship stores around the country to try and keep up with Apple.  So far they have announced that they would first open two locations in Dallas and the Palisades Center in West Nyack, NY (which both have Apple Store locations).  Check out more images of the Dallas NorthPark location after the break.

Note: We apologize for the poor picture quality, the images were taken on a Treo.

[Thanks Doc!]

Last month, Dell announced that they would be opening stores in malls similar to Apple. With the amazing success of Apple stores, who wouldn’t want to copy? The first mall they will be moving into is NorthPark Center in Dallas, TX. Since I happen to be in Dallas at the moment, I decided to drop on by (on the way to the Apple Store) and snap a pic of mothership. Unlike Apple, Dell won’t actually have any inventory in the stores since their such believers of direct ordering. Watch out Apple, Dell’s coming to a neighborhood near you. Look out for a Peep Show in the near future.

Apple opened a new store in Freehold, NJ on May 27th, just enough time after hype from the 5th Ave Cube settled down. Lucky for me, this store is right next to my hometown, where my parents still live. I decided to wake up early and get over there to see how many mid-Jersey Mac-heads there really are. The store opened at 10:00, as I arrived. As expected I also arrived to a nice line (you can almost make out the Apple logo.

Ahh, there it is, the most holy image in Macworld.

Next one into the store! (I snagged 2 free t-shirts, read on to see how to win one...)

As packed as expect, check. Just like every other Apple Store, check. Still refreshing, check.

Oh how great it would be to be considered genius.

I knew I was missing something for that hot date.

iPods? Oh yeah, those are the little things that play music. Nah, we’re not interested in them, bring on the MacBook.

So as I said above, I was able to snag two Apple Store t-shirts for you loyal readers. To win: In a comment to this post guess what Apple product I own...or...what was the first Apple Store I ever went to? I will respond after every 5 comments and announce if anyone answered correctly. Good Luck!

You gotta love having rules:

1. Must answer one of the two questions correctly.


2. Must provide the exact product


3. One entry per person.


4. You must use a valid email address otherwise I will not be able to send you the prize.


5. We will ship to the 48 continental US states.


6. Entries are accepted until someone answers correctly.

Over the past week we have had a bunch of new stories that seemed to compete against one another, so we decided to fight it out. At the completion of our PTI-like podcast Doug walked away with a black eye, Adam has a broken nose, and Greg our sound guy...well let’s just say that his mother was not happy. OK, not really but it got heated. Checkout the lineup below. This podcast was once again sponsored by GoDaddy.com.  Head over there and get 10% off any domain or hosting order courtesy Gadgetell and GoDaddy.

• Treo 700p vs. Motorola Q


• AIM Phoneline vs. Free Skype Out calling


• Site redesigns (Yahoo and Flickr) vs. Change is bad


• Sony VAIO UX vs. Origmani vs. Sidekick III vs. Tablet PCs vs. Nokia 770


• XM vs. RIAA


• MacBook vs. iBook


• Apple Stores (specifically the cube) vs. other CE company stores (Samsung, Sony Style, Dell)


• Treo 700p out on Sprint vs. Verizon

Listen In
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Hosts: Doug Berger, Adam Berger
Producer: Greg Cherniet
Music: Dvir Tzadok
File size: 29.7MB
Length: 00:43:20

Sponsored by GoDaddy.com:
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Feedback is much appreciated. If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please email us at gadgetell (at) gmail.com.  Thanks for listening!