Apple : Blip: 3, 2, 1...WWDC 2013 is sold out |
- Blip: 3, 2, 1...WWDC 2013 is sold out
- Blip: Coffee with Cook: bid big for a chat with Apple's CEO
- In Depth: Did Apple Stores save Apple?
| Blip: 3, 2, 1...WWDC 2013 is sold out Posted:  If you left your computer to go toast a bagel or perform some other two-minute task as tickets to WWDC 2013 went on sale, then you're out of luck. They're all gone. Trouncing last year's time of two hours, the $1,599 (around £1,050, AU$1,550) passes to Apple's annual developers shindig were clearly the hottest ticket in town today. The event takes place June 10 through June 14 in San Francisco, and Apple has promised to give devs a probing look at "what's next in iOS and OS X." We're holding out for some iOS 7 goodies. Those of you who missed your chance to register, fear not: Apple assures there will be ways to live vicariously from home. More blips!Bummed about the sell out? We think the only cure is to read more blips, bunched all together in one happy place. |
| Blip: Coffee with Cook: bid big for a chat with Apple's CEO Posted: 
Just a quick list of games we'd play with Tim Cook if we won half an hour of the Apple CEO's time in this charity auction. Now, can anyone lend us $184,995? **also known as, "What are you having for dinner?" More blips!Back to reality: peruse more tech nuggets fresh from the deep fat fryer that is the internet. |
| In Depth: Did Apple Stores save Apple? Posted:  Based in one of America's wealthiest counties, Tysons Corner Center brims with shoppers on a daily basis. But for the state of Virginia's largest shopping mall, the pre-dawn hours of Saturday 19 May, 2001 were unusually busy. "I have lived in the area for 17 years," said one visitor to the Center, "and I've never seen anything like it." Some 500 people lined the precinct walkways, but this was no sales rush at Macy's. The world's first Apple Store was about to open its doors to the public. Inside, CEO Steve Jobs showed press around the white platforms and wall-length tables of iMacs and PowerBooks. Joe Wilcox was part of the group: "The store sports hardwood floors, high ceilings, bright lights and clean lines, similar to trendy clothing retailer Gap," he reported. "It's remarkably understated." The comparison was apt - Gap's President and CEO, Mickey Drexler, had been on Apple's Board of Directors for two years. Even so, diving into a volatile retail space was far from what the board had had in mind. Check out MacFormat's amazing infographic on the rise of the Apple Store. Click the image for a bigger version.
Reality distortion"The Apple store offers an amazing new way to buy a computer," announced Jobs to a rapt audience as he stood in front of the Genius Bar beneath a photo of John and Yoko. "Rather than just hear about megahertz and megabytes, customers can learn and experience the things they can actually do with a computer." But Jobs' unstinting self-confidence that spring morning concealed the risky hand that Apple's board had allowed its CEO to play. For two years Apple's market share had hovered around a measly 2.8%. Jobs believed he knew why. The problem was big-chain retailers that hid away Macs in the corners of stores and employed clerks who often knew as little about the products as the customers. Jobs felt that Apple would never shake off its 'cult' image unless he could control the buying experience down to the moment of transaction. "Unless we could find ways to get our message to customers at the store, we were screwed." Jobs' search for a retail executive to spearhead that message began in 1999. A series of secret interviews singled out Ron Johnson, the brains behind Target discount stores' highly successful branded merchandise line. Johnson was the son of a General Mills executive, and had developed an interest in design after witnessing the way Italian company Alessi presented its pots and juicers as works of art at a Frankfurt housewares show. "It was like walking through a museum," he recalled. "They weren't there to make money; they were there to make great products." The experience inspired Johnson to take a gamble, and he hired the architect Michael Graves to create low-cost versions of his designer teakettles exclusively for Target. The move was shrewd - the line was such a hit that the retailer's image was transformed from vanilla discount outlet to a store that sold stylish but affordable products.
Jobs was so impressed by Johnson's belief in bringing elegant products to ordinary people that he asked him back for a second interview. This time though, the tone was more casual. They took a walk to the local Stanford Shopping Mall. Retail philosophy and the conspicuous absence of technology stores dominated the discussion. Johnson explained that computers were a major and infrequent purchase, so customers were prepared to travel to a less convenient location where the rent was cheaper. But Jobs eschewed expense; he wanted Apple stores in central malls where foot traffic was high, and where Microsoft-using passers-by could be easily coaxed inside. Between them the Apple Store vision was already taking shape. It would have just one door so that customers intuitively grasped the layout as they entered; it would be elegant, spacious, and offer comfortable places to try out the company's products; and its salespeople would be on hand to offer the best advice - not the advice that earns them the most commission. Finally, Johnson expressed his belief that the store should be the most powerful expression of the brand, and Jobs knew he had found his man. Economy of unease
Convincing Apple's directors of the idea was Jobs' bigger challenge. Gateway had just closed 40 of its stores, and Apple's own sales had plummeted 29% the previous year. Against this climate, the board was in no mood for a high-street venture. "I'm scratching my head and thinking this is crazy," recalled Art Levison, CEO of Genentech, who joined the Apple board in 2000. "We're a small company, a marginal player. I said that I'm not sure I can support something like this." Apple's Chairman Ed Woolard shared Levison's concerns, and Jobs was facing a backlash. Fortunately, though, one of his cannier board appointments was about to prove his worth. Mickey Drexler told him not to worry and to go ahead, build a store - not in a shopping mall, but in an empty Cupertino warehouse. Give it the full treatment, and hang out there until you feel comfortable, he said. Just keep it secret. So Jobs and Johnson went to work. The prototype store was constructed in a vacant rented lot, where brainstorming sessions were conducted every week for six months. There Johnson came up with the concept of a 'genius bar', a sort of mix between a concierge desk and a drinks bar, after remembering his exceptional service experiences at Ritz-Carlton hotels. Occasionally Drexler and some of Jobs' trusted friends would drop by and offer opinion and advice. With his hand in every decision and detail, right down to the streamlined, cashier-less checkout, Jobs' vision was becoming concrete. Then Johnson threw him a curveball. With the store almost finished, it occurred to Johnson that the layout was all wrong. The displays shouldn't be organised around Apple's product lines, but around what customers could do with them - make movies, create photo albums, burn CDs; in other words, solutions. Jobs was apoplectic. "Do you know what a big change this is? I've worked my ass off on this store for six months, and now you want to change everything!" But eventually the CEO conceded. The store was reworked, and in 2001 Jobs revealed their prototype to the board. Approval was unanimous. Everyone agreed it would take retailing and brand image to a new level, opening the path for Apple's image transformation from 'cult' to 'cool'. Retail therapy
Outsiders saw a high-street disaster waiting to happen. Apple's decision to set up 25 outlets in high-rent districts would mean having to rake in $12 million a year each, just to break even. Given that Gateway's shops could barely manage eight million a year, the numbers just didn't add up. The impression was that Jobs' Bauhaus-inspired obsession with aesthetics resulted in beautiful products that had limited appeal outside the Apple faithful. The company's former CFO, Joseph Graziano, accused Apple of "serving caviar in a world content with cheese and crackers," while Channel Marketing analyst David Goldstein gave them "two years before they're turning out the lights on a very painful and expensive mistake." But Jobs and Johnson were wise to take the long-view. Two years and 73 store openings later, Apple recorded $3 million in profit per store, per quarter, with 60,000 visitors per store. In 2004 Apple Retail brought in $1.2 billion, shattering an industry record for fastest billion-dollar milestone. Critics were well aware of Jobs' ability to create buzz around a new product release, but the idea that he could apply the same flair to a store opening hadn't occurred to them. At heart, Jobs had always been a showman, the difference was his showmanship was rooted in a genuine passion for the retail experience. Each interior was a new canvas for his personal aesthetic, from the authentic Florentine sandstone flooring he demanded, to the specific grey hue of the restroom signs he chose. In 2002, a historic SoHo, New York former post office was earmarked to house Apple's first 'high-profile' US store. Jobs hired firm Bohlin Cywinski Jackson to help with the design, the beginning of a lasting partnership. He and Peter Bohlin worked closely to create a centrepiece stairway made entirely of glass, the material that would become Apple's signature architectural statement. Famed for his rustic-modern country houses and Seattle's City Hall, as well as Bill Gates' palatial family compound, Bohlin was in many ways a contemporary of Jobs. A lifelong interest in elemental geometry and "getting to the essence of architecture" mirrored Jobs' penchant for minutiae and zen-like minimalism - converging visions that would reach a culmination in 2006 with Apple's Fifth Avenue NY store, or 'the Cube'. Bohlin had never designed a whole store before, but that fact didn't matter to Jobs. He saw Apple Stores as social spaces that were more akin to clubhouses. In response, Bohlin sketched a cubic structure in front of the General Motors tower. "But how do you motivate people to come down into a space like this?" he wondered. The solution, it turned out, was to turn the cube into a giant skylight - a "ceremony of descent" that would act as both symbol and portal. The Cube boasted 50,000 visitors a week in its first year, and by 2010 had grossed more per square foot than any store in the world. No building has captured the public imagination like it, before or since. "It was in Apple's DNA to try to make something that no one else had the vision to create," Ron Johnson recalled. That sequence would be replicated again and again. To date, Apple counts 22 high-profile outlets among its 395 stores in 13 countries. Combined they span 3.1 million feet of leased space (each square foot earning $6,050 per year) and employ over 36,000 staff that serve a million visitors a day. Pretty 'cool', if you ask Apple. VP vindication
Jobs took medical leave in January 2011, by which time Apple's high-street earnings made up 10% of its total profit. Sensing a job complete and perhaps the end of an era, Ron Johnson left his position as VP of Retail Operations one month after Jobs' death, aiming to repeat his success at the ailing US department store JC Penney. Apple's acting CEO, former chief of operations Tim Cook, had kept the ship steady. But with his role made permanent, Cook faced his first big hire, and in January of 2012 tapped Dixons executive John Browett to oversee the company's retail arm. "Our retail stores are all about customer service, and John shares that commitment like no one else we've met," Cook said in a statement. "We are thrilled to have him join our team and bring his incredible retail experience to Apple." But the recruitment was perceived by many as odd given Browett's management style: Apple stores were clean, spacious, minimalist, whereas Dixons' shops were brightly coloured with shelves that were chock-full of products - and considered by some as perennially understaffed. Jon Margolis of FT's How to Spend It magazine, summed up the industry rumblings with the tweet, "#Apple has hired bloke from Dixons. Tim Cook very excited about this as he's Mr Customer Service. Has he been to Dixons?" The summation proved prophetic. Browett wasted no time in his aim to lower costs and increase profit margin, and widespread layoffs were reported just weeks before the launch of the iPhone 5. By August the same year, though, the company had backtracked. "Making these changes was a mistake and the changes are being reversed," said an Apple spokesperson. The statement was likened by blogger John Gruber to Alec Baldwin's dressing-down tirade in Gengarry Glen Ross. The Loop's Jim Dalrymple called the operational changes "one of the worst decisions Apple had ever made." Seven months later, Apple announced Browett was leaving the company. The Peter Principle
Apple hasn't had a head of retail since, but the high street juggernaut rolls on. In the first quarter of 2013 alone, stores netted $6.44 billion worth sales, up 17% on the previous year. But is Apple being carried by a legacy in spite of itself? JC Penney's last reported quarter under CEO Ron Johnson has been described as the worst reported by any retailer, ever. Are we witnessing the Peter Principle - that employees tend to rise to their level of incompetence? Was the Johnson- Jobs-Bohlin trio more than the sum of its parts, a unique time in history, never be repeated again? At New York's Fifth Avenue, customers still descend the glass stairs to enter a stainless steel and stone environment where Apple's lean line of products take center stage. Custom-designed wooden fixtures, a stainless steel ceiling and an Italian stone floor make an elegant, yet restrained backdrop. The doors remain open 24/7, in the store that never sleeps. |
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