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One More Thing For Apple Stores: Food?
mattnyc99 writes "Esquire raises an interesting question on iPhone 5 day: What if Apple stores had cafes? From an analyst cited in the article: 'In line with the Genius Bar concept, I could see them taking a part of the store and making it a café atmosphere where customers could interact with technology in a relaxed environment.'"
What's your opinion on this?
I'm sure this would be successful, at least in some markets. It would fit right in with the coffee-shop/bookstore theme that has been popular for quite a while.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
Alcohol would help sales as it increases the chance of making impulse decisions.
Hivemind harvest in progress..
From a stat I saw a few weeks ago (can't be bothered to look it up) , Apple already rakes in about double the $ per square foot it makes from its stores than the next highest retailer makes in their stores. So why would Apple want to change a winning formula?
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
It's a shop where you go in, play with the technology (if it's not too busy) and buy something expensive. If you start having people go in there just for the food/drink then it'll stop being a 'premium' purchasing experience and start being a coffee shop. Which will make less money per square foot. Stupid idea from a magazine that needed something written down to fill up space.
It's called Starbucks. Of course Apple doesn't own it so they would probably open iBucks and sue to have Starbucks shut down for stealing their look and feel.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
To further besmirch the image of the average iPhone/iPad user, let's have a café where they can appear to be casually hanging out, before going someplace or doing something incredibly important, but for now can spare $20 for a cuppa and a scone.
Hey! This iPhone was an open box, there's crumbs in here!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
If the Apple stores sold food, how would that affect Apple's legal action against a supermarket chain that uses a stylized apple-shaped W as its logo?
they do, it's called Starbucks ...
Sorry about the typo...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
Reminds me of a friends facebook status: "At Genius Bar. I can think of at least two things wrong with that name."
no comment
... expansive ...
Like a balloon?
A glorious synergy of snack food and glossy touchscreen devices.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Not only would "apple store" plus "coffee shop" be hipster overload, but where you see "customers could interact with technology in a relaxed environment", I see "people spilling coffee on things"
Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
Some guy surmises something? Why is that a news story? We don't re-post comments as news stories on Slashdot even though some of them can be quite thoughtful and factual, so why should we post some random other guy's musings?
I like this idea, mainly because it might finally clear all of the smug douchebag hipsters out of the regular coffee shops. Then I could enjoy my brownie without having to listen to some dipshit typing away on their $2000 Apple laptop while talking to anyone within earshot about social justice and evil corporations.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Heh I just had this picture in my head of an Android Coffee shop that sells cheap coffee. Just before they hand you the coffee they beg and plead for you to put money in the tip jar!
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Too easy.
I'd steer clear of the Kool-Aid, that's for sure.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
This would not be inline with the Genius Bar, which is there to help people resolve problems users have experienced with their Apple technology.
One thing that Apple does better than almost any other tech company is that they say No to most items that are not relevant to their goals. They do not load up their stores with extra padding items in order to try to sell a few more units, unless they think that it fits in with the use of their key products. When you launch a new Mac, you are not hit over the head with loads of crap-ware which the system vendor managed to make an extra 30 bucks by hoisting upon you.
Picking up the short buck is not worth tarnishing the brand. To bad few other tech vendors will be able to figure this out.
I'd visit more often if they would give people an apple upon request. Of course, they'd probably be McIntosh. In that case, I probably wouldn't stop by. Too soft for me. However, if they gave away Cameos...
Nah. Still not close enough (30 mile drive to the closest Apple store, which is much further than the 5 mile drive to the closest grocery store.)
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
apple secret attitude may not be good for the health inspector.
And there are ads everywhere you look.
Godaddy is a scam and a ripoff.
New definition of iMac - for a high price of 50 bucks you can have all you can eat one iMac Sandwich. Personally designed and tasted by Steve Jobs.
You can't handle the truth.
I'll open a Starbucks franchise and double, no triple the prices. Then I'll sell drinks that are pre-formulated: no substitutions or additions to confuse the customer! I'll also have my "smart baristas" sell the exact same drink in three different sizes, the smaller ones missing ingredients the larger ones have! Oh, and once they seal the lid on top you can't take it off. It's a safety feature!
then all apple fanbois would converge in known places we can avoid.
Read radical news here
Hope you don't mind greasy fingerprints on those nice shiny touch screens.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
And they keep telling you that they'll tell you what's in it so you can make your own at home, but then hide all the recipe books.
"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
that would be ehm... inappropriate.
I can barely get in the door of the Apple Store in the ones I've visited in Toronto and Ottawa. They need more crowding, why?
This is a seriously stupid idea.
There is an Apple store not far from where I work. I go past it from time to time, have brought a few products in for service, and even made a purchase or two in the store.
You know what stands out about the Apple store?
It is ALWAYS full of people. Why would they give up valuable floor space currently used to display products, to try to sell coffee? To bring in customers? They do not seem to have a problem with that.
Yet another stupid idea by someone who has never run a business.
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
Can they make it like Cafe Macs in Cupertino? When I went there for training, it was hand-down the best cafeteria I've ever ever ever seen.
With the first link, the chain is forged.
An average Apple product with x86 architecture has mediocre hardware, rounded corners and is overpriced, but they have somehow managed to make people to buy these things. This is witchcraft, admirable! Gas-stops and fat-food chains have managed to do a similar thing with food. So, why not Apple?
I can already interact with technology in a relaxed environment... At home. I can probably be more relaxed at home than at some iCafe surrounded by hipsters trying to be seen being hip.
They could also put in an altar where they could worship at the likeness of Steve Jobs. Then call it a church and claim non-profit status.
Maybe after they open up the cafe's in the corner, they could start selling books so that patron's had something to read whilst they sipped coffee?
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
yeah, yeah! Apple would charge you $50 per cap of coffee but make actual cap looks so nice, you want it!
it they also made sure there is no lid on a cap, but tiny hole on a side, so you can refill your fifty backs cap at the Apple stores ONLY!!!!
so Appleish!
-bash: ./ers: No such file or directory
1. You only eat your iMeal with an approved iSpork. 2. You may only dispose of digested iMeals in an iToilet. 3. In case of frequent inability to digest, and subsequent regurgitation, please purchase an iBag. 4. Sharing your iMeal with friends, family, or persons in distress will result in immediate legal proceedings to the full extent of the law.
... expansive ...
Like a balloon?
Like ...expensive...
It's not Java! Stop calling it that, you'll get me in trouble!
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Open Source coffee shop might actually be a good gimmick.
Cheap coffee and some baked goods, but have the recipe book out for people to look at. Could take suggestions from people on how to modify the recipes, which should eventually lead to a recipe tuned perfectly for the local preferences.
Do the roasting for the coffee on site too, and sell the raw beans to people who want to do the roasting themselves.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
The Apple stores I go to are way too busy to provide a "relaxed environment." They don't have the room, and I suspect they don't need to have people stick around and socialize. The recent trend is in the other direction - the Genius bar gets 15 minutes / problem, and I was told there was strong pressure to get people rotated out, even if a fix could be done in a longer time.
In case no one else noticed, there is a frikken BITE taken out of the apple in the Apple logo. I have always taken this as a symbol of their taking a piece of whatever you get from them or that it is never quite complete. But if they sold food could we expect the same?
I bet Apple fans would spend $10 on a Snickers bar with an Apple logo on it, and claim its better!
TWO reasons serving beverages and cookies in Apple Stores is a bad idea:
1) ***Overcrowding***.
Even the most minor buildup of hippies, coffee-shop squatters, and other annoying bourgeois who don't buy anything but snacks and coffee is enough to deter REAL buyers who are typically impatient and in need of quick service and a quiet atmosphere. (P.S. -- real buyers aren't hungry all the freaking time either. Food in airplanes? Food in classrooms? Do we need food *everywhere*? Eat later, fatsos. You'll make it.)
2) ***Mess***.
Filthy, sticky, disgusting smudgy computers? these are the ones Esquire magazine thinks are the ones people want? Are you f(*dng kidding? Who's idea *was* this? Coffee and electronics should never coexist on the same plane.
Heh I just had this picture in my head of an Android Coffee shop that sells cheap coffee.
Were they serve only Java coffee. Almost Java anyways.
Do you want to change the world ... or come with me and sell hot water?
76 comments and no one, not even the original article, has commented on this is the perfect way to roll out a near field communications micropayment function in the next iphone?
NFC / micropayments / all that rot all have the chicken and the egg problem. But if you knew you could at least buy a cuppa coffee at any Apple store with it... maybe if Apple didn't sell the coffee itself but got some established coffee shop to move in as part of a deal ALL of that chain's coffee shops would accept the new NFC micropayments thingy... I think we're on to something here, for the intro of NFC payment.
At least around here, Apple stores are in big malls, with lots of foot traffic, which certainly pushes the NFC concept into other stores.... I can buy a cuppa coffee at the apple store, why not every food court vendor... why not buy a shirt at old navy... I think we're on to something here, for the NFC midgame/growth phase...
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
If Apple started selling apples then they might lose their trademark for being to generic.
Of course the cafe sounds interesting. There could be poetry readings that are typed into a screen reader on a MacBook Air, and whenever an iPad is sold, everyone could snap their fingers in approval.
Chicks who prefer the "Apple Cafe" over Starbucks ought to count as "geekier" than the average... It's not much, I know, but perhaps the best chance an average /.er can hope for.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
Just imagine how expensive an expansive mouth would be.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
You would have to have a compatible, expansive iMouth to eat their even more expansive iFood.
My guess is the "iMouth" would be a new model iPhone/iPod/iPad/mac laptop with NFC micropayment hardware, and the store would literally only accept the NFC micropayments for the iFood. No cash, no CC, no checks, just the new NFC thing. Probably if you buy a new iPhone in person at a iFood store you'd get a $5 credit with the expectation you'd immediately use it to buy iFood to get that first initial experience with the new NFC thing.
Also, anyone who's ever bought iProducts has noticed the packaging is beyond crazy, so expect your coffee to come in some weird three dimensional plastic sculpture and your donut to come in some elaborate clear plastic puzzle that takes 15 minutes to open.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Just ask Julia Roberts.
The perfect place to go if there are no homeless sit there and sleep.
To all recommending that they also sell books, well.... They do... All you need is an iPad.
David
At least thats what a Bar owner told me...
Oh dear. Here comes the bitter geek filth and their virulent hate and bile for anything outside their tiny nerd postage stamp of a world.
Please, geeks, please tell us how your personal product decisions are the ONLY POSSIBLE CORRECT ones for every single person in every walk of life and every possible situation ever in the world. Oh, and don't forget to call people sheeple, the "infinity plus one" of all geek "debate".
EBT/Food Stamps?
I been to plenty of stores and made plenty of purchases to know it is there. In fact, my last experience was at the Tesla store when I purchased two Tesla Rosters (RC toys for just $30 each).
Every hipster type I ever met was into Linux, usually the most obscure distribution they could find. Either that or BeOS.
Apple stuff is way too mainstream for any True Hipster.
I hope the EPA will regulate the levels of smug inside those cafes.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
The first thing they'd need to put on the menu was colonic cleansing drinks and shakes with wheatgrass. It's the perfect demographic.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Chicks who prefer the "Apple Cafe" over Starbucks ought to count as "Douchier" than the average... It's not that they know much about technology, they just have money to waste, I know, but perhaps the best chance an average /.er can hope for.
FTFY dumbass
Does this mean that if E Coli is found on the lettuce that they could do a recall on it and retroactively remove it from my system?
"What if a raw-gunpowder-store encouraged on-site smoking?"
Apple wants you to ruin *your* equipment, not theirs.
Serving food makes them subject to licensing, inspection, and to all sorts of public health and safety laws, some of which have very tenuous connections to actual public health and safety.
It is really obvious why they are doing this, now as apple employees leave work and hit the bars to forget everything they can leave prototypes in a place where apple can easily collect them.
I would totally go to the Apple cafe, just once. I'd bring my Thinkpad, just to enjoy the looks on people's faces.
Person S: $100 dollar potato chips?
Person R: But it's Apple chips, they're better and worth it.
Person S: Like they taste better or healthier?
Person R: No, they don't get virus's.
One MacBurger, please!
To go!
I can imagine the apple store serving food. You can buy a muffin, but you can only eat it with one hand, and you have to take the wrapper off first. You can't eat it outside the store, and you can't drink it with any other companies coffee. It only comes in 3 varieties, and you will like all 3. You have to use 2 napkins and can't pick the nuts out. And if you don't like nuts too bad, you are just stupid then, and don't deserve to own the muffin.
Mean what you say...say what you mean.
the iPotato?
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/loadingreadyrun/1430-iPotato
Their hygiene is better, they'll look up to your technical knowledge, and they have too much money. What exactly were you 'fixing'?
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
You would be free to buy the food, but it would be overpriced, wouldn't work properly as food and you still wouldn't own it.
You would also think you are getting a great deal, and of course, the food would have to look pretty.
An Apple Genius asked former retail chief Ron Jonson whether we could consider serving coffee given the cafe culture present in Sydney.
Ron stated that he felt that it was moving away from Apples core offerings and didn't make sense, citing that they used to have fridges under genius bars to offer waiting customers water and it didn't work.
Apple stores have enough spillages from filthy customers as it is!
Apples and Guiness (At their Guiness bar?)
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Coffee or other drink meets keyboard, laptop, etc will mean that a high likelihood of damaged or dead devices due to liquid immersion. I think the insurance for Apple Store increase exponentially due risk of damage due to liquids.