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Apple Opens First 'Next Generation' Retail Store (usatoday.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Apple has opened its new flagship store on Thursday in San Fransisco, throwing the curtain back on a design that puts a premium on hanging out over shopping. About 20 percent of the new store's space features an open Forum area where visitors can learn about Apple's various products. The new design is rolling out to stores in Brussels, Memphis and Guilderland, N.Y. "This is the next generation of Apple retail," Angela Ahrendts, Apple's senior vice president of retail and online operations, told media. "Fifteen years ago today Apple opened its first two stores and we're thrilled to mark the occasion with the opening of Apple Union Square in San Francisco," she said. "We are not just evolving our store design, but its purpose and greater role in the community as we educate and entertain visitors and serve our network of local entrepreneurs." The new stores were designed by Ahrendts and Apple's design chief, Jony Ive. "Among the other big changes in evidence is morphing Apple's Genius Bar to Genius Grove; the addition of a new Boardroom area dedicated to small business customers; and the advent of a new staff position, Apple Creative Pro, tasked with helping consumers with specific questions on music, photography, videos and the like," writes USA Today. "In addition, some of Apple's most significant store locations, include the [Apple Union Square in San Fransisco], will feature a public Plaza that will be open 24/7 and feature free Wi-Fi as well as occasional concerts and other performances." Oh, and you can't forget about the new 6K video wall, which display broadcasts various Apple products.
I've read enough of their columns to understand it. I don't agree, but I can understand it well enough to explain it.
A lot of the opposition is based in the basic 'icky' element, but the more rigorous justifications turn to natural law. The concept that there is a 'rightness' ordained to society. Some see this order as divine, a plan by God himself, others as simply a part of human nature which cannot be opposed without creating conflict and chaos. This natural law says how things should be. Among other things it says that men and women are not the same and cannot be treated the same, because trying to treat men as women or vice versa denies their different nature and the roles created for them. Men were created to work and to fight, women to care for the children. Boys seek out the toy guns and policeman uniforms and dream of becoming an astronaut, while girls seek the dolls and nurse uniforms because that is how they are created. Men and women partner up and raise a family because that is the natural order - the way things should be.
Then along comes this new-fangled equality thing, and all hell breaks loose. Men in relationships with men? That violates the natural order, and down that path lies madness. Letting boys play with dolls? You are trying to make them into something that goes against what boys are. Women in the military? But that is not where women belong! Their role has always been in the home, and now you are trying to put the square female peg into the round male hole of warfare. And then to acknowledge these 'trans' people is a step beyond that, because it destroys the very distinction of male and female that is central to society. It denies nature itsself. If men can be women then black can be white and north can be south and truth becomes meaningless.
There's a huge glaring hole in all this, though: It's bullshit. There is no natural moral law, or natural lawbook, or any objective measure of how things should be - only how they are, and how they came to be. Every shift in society has been blocked by those who claimed it violated the natural law - the abolishment of slavery, the end of segregation, interracial marriage, the introduction of contraception, universal education. I expect ten thousand years ago there were hunter-gatherers refusing to plant the first crops because it seemed unnatural. Certainly there were those more recently who said it was in the nature of some races to rule and others to serve, and that was as it should be. Every time people have looked at the status quo and declared 'it has always been thus, it is natural that it be thus, and so any change would be in violation of what is natural.' Because natural law does not exist - all it can do is reflect the beliefs of the person who invokes it, and allow them to claim natural or even divine backing for whatever views they wish to defend.