May 21, 2001

[NOTE: The store openings have of course been a rousing success on all counts. It is quite possible that yours truly has been living in the wilderness too long. It's also possible that my predilection for contrarian views is distorting my common sense. It's also possible that what follows will prove to be totally correct once the commotion dies down. In any case don't have a cow. Onward through the fog, as a wise man once said. -- JHF]

How many of you have actually BEEN to Tyson's Corner?!

APPLE STORES? UM...
Let's get one thing straight at the beginning: I have absolutely nothing against the concept of Apple retail stores. In fact, I'd love to go visit one. What better place to go see the lastest hardware and actually put your fingers on the keys? The problem is -- and there is a problem -- that they probably aren't going to work.

It's been said that the stores aren't meant to actually push product out the door, unlike the overbuilt and overstocked Gateway PC stores, over 400 of which are being shut down. Gateway tried to make it easy for anyone to walk in off the street and walk out with a couple of cow-boxes, but when the stock market dropped and the personal computer market contracted, they were stuck with an awful lot of beige. No, what Apple plans to do is put the products in front of people and show everyone how cool they are. Sounds like a plan, right?

BMW AND THE EDUCATION MARKET
Well, I dunno. On the one hand, it'll be great to be able to walk into one of these places and see what you can do with a new Mac, assuming you have money and time with which to play. They'll be great resource centers, staffed with official "geniuses" and all. For those two reasons alone, if I'm ever in the vicinity of one of the shiny demo digs, I'll drop in and stroll around. Of course, I already know what I can do with a Mac. . . But it's always exciting to see the machines up close. Is it that way for everyone, though? I'd be thrilled, and so would you, but will your PC-using neighbor? Will he or she actually be curious enough to walk into enemy territory and subject himself to Apple's propaganda and marketing machine? I have to wonder if this will actually take place, or whether the stores will be filled with Mac faithful who just want to run their hands over the cases. I would never walk into a PC store. Am I missing something here?

One of the craziest arguments I've read for these stores is that upscale mall-rats will be attracted to them, see all the cool equipment, and then go home and whine to their parents about how much they wished they had something that spiffy to play with in school. The parents, always eager to do their offspring's bidding, will then commandeer school board meetings and insist that their tax dollars be spent on Macintosh computers. As an education market strategy, this is laughable if true. We already have plenty of parents (and teachers) imploring local school authorities either to purchase new Macs or keep the ones they have, and only occasionally does this meet with success in the face of biased IT departments and the inevitable bottom line.

Finally, in market share discussions, we often see Apple compared to BMW. You know, "BMW is doing fine and they only have single-digit market share," things like that. And the cars are fabulous, but how many are used for driver's ed? Schools need cheap stuff, and all the frustrated 4th-grade DVD producers in the world won't change that.

SONY, SCHMONY
It's been said that Apple intends to follow the model of Sony Corporation, which maintains a number of stores that function mainly as demonstration and marketing emporia. I wouldn't know. I've never seen a "Sony Store," if that's what they're called. I do know that Sony makes high-quality consumer electronic products, several of which I own. In other words, I have the good sense to trust Sony manufactured goods and have always done so without the help of any fancy marketing efforts that I'm aware of, at least not recent ones. Ah, but where did I get the idea that Sony goods were, well, good? I must have been subjected to advertising, yes? Again, not that I remember. I can't recall a single Sony commercial or print advertisement. I do know that any Sony TV I've ever purchased has been bulletproof. I also know that the fancy Sony portable stereo we bought a few years ago is now ready to be junked!

In case nobody noticed, there's one big difference between Sony and Apple: computers cost a lot more than boomboxes, radios, stereo ampliers, and most TVs. . . Sony audio gear costs more than Sanyo equivalents, for example but it's still affordable in relation to computers, whether made by Sony, Apple, or the man in the moon. How many sub-$300 Apple products can you name? Oh well. Maybe we'll be able to walk into a new Apple Store and find insanely great special discounts on Apple hardware and third-party products. That isn't how they're being presented to us, but maybe it'll happen. And maybe iMac discount coupons will show up in Wheaties boxes.

NO ROOM AT THE INN
What's a good rant without going over the edge, eh? -- so we'll close with some good ole retro simple-living, class warfare hyperbole. Ahem: This "UPSCALE" MARKETING SCHTICK turns me off! Upscale sucks. Upscale is discriminatory. And upscale doesn't even guarantee a place to park. Listen up, children: I have been to Tyson's Corner Center (location of McLean, VA Apple store). I never want to go there again. The traffic is horrible. Of course, I hate most shopping malls in the first place and only used to go for the Cinnabons, anyway. Most of the malls in the mid-Atlantic region are hellish nightmares where vicious Volvo-driving housewives circle endlessly looking for parking places. Upscale or not, it makes no difference. I have been stranded in traffic jams next to automobiles that cost more than my house, and they were just as stuck as I was.

On the one hand, it makes sense for Apple to look for money where the well-off congregate (Willie Sutton* would understand). The shiny Apple Stores may indeed win the hearts and minds of those with surplus credit ,whose principal recreation is plunging into shopping malls to score the hippest booty in the land. And more power to Cupertino, I say: if any corporation deserves to separate the amply-fed from their wallets, it's my favorite computer maker. I want Apple to succeed and be around forever, even if it's no longer the hungry, revolutionary, purveyor of computing power to the masses it once was (sigh).

On the other hand, the fancy stores may reinforce the notion of Apple computers as unorthodox, non-mainstream, fancy playthings. (What if the only place you could buy one was out of Hammacher-Schlemmer catalogs?) The company has a strategy to combat this, though: I read that Apple plans to hire teachers to work in the stores as a way of "reaching out" to local schools and promoting Mac purchases by same. Oh geez. Maybe things are different in California, but everywhere I've ever been, teachers (at least the good ones) are perpetually overworked! How Apple expects to find teachers with the TIME to work the aisles is a mystery to me. And as for the notion that school boards might actually listen to teachers, well...

GIMME, GIMME, GIMME!
OK, I'm done. But I want everyone to know that I have nothing against high-quality, beautiful, expensive tools or toys, for that matter. When I finally "sell that book," I'll go out and buy the fastest damn car I can afford (a red M3 would be nice). I may rant and rail, but I'm still a cheeseburger-chompin', rock & rollin', all-American boy, and don't you forget it!

I want a new iBook, too, what the hell, and an iMac in every room. I want a ranch in the mountains. I want the new Yamaha Harley clone I just bought a raffle ticket for. At a pow-wow last month I actually paid $10 to participate in a raffle with a real live BUFFALO as first prize! (The drawing is May 31st.) Yes, you can actually do things like that here. If Apple builds a store in Santa Fe, or "Fanta-Say," as some of us like to call it, I'll drive down and check it out. But watch out, mall-rats:

I ain't goin' nowhere without the buff!

Senior Applelinks editor and columnist John H. Farr says he'd love to be rich and suggests that a mechanism to that end can be found at his Zoozone site with its amazing daily FotoFeed feature. Other than that, he's now taking up Web site building -- anything for a buck! ZPD will cost you a bit more than that, of course, so get that checkbook ready.

*Famous bankrobber from long ago, who reportedly answered the question "why do you rob banks?" by saying, "Because that's where the money is."

AUDIO CREDIT: embedded 44k file, European Birds -- Sounds and Sonograms. Next week, we boost the volume and loop it forever.