Apple Computer is taking its retail act north of the border.
The Mac maker confirmed to CNET News.com on Friday that it plans to open a store in Toronto in mid-2005. Apple started notifying Canadian retailers of its plans earlier Friday, according to Mac enthusiast site Macosxrumors.com. The company currently sells its gear at 450 independent retail locations in Canada. An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment on the company's Canadian retail plans beyond the Toronto location.
The move continues an international expansion that began in Japan and continues with this weekend's opening of a store in London. Two more U.K. stores are also planned for next year, Apple executives said at a press tour of the London store. Apple hinted that its European plans are likely to take it beyond the British Isles. "We clearly didn't come to Europe just for the U.K.," retail executive Ron Johnson said at the London event. "You'll have to stay tuned."
News source: C|Net News.com
The Mac maker confirmed to CNET News.com on Friday that it plans to open a store in Toronto in mid-2005. Apple started notifying Canadian retailers of its plans earlier Friday, according to Mac enthusiast site Macosxrumors.com. The company currently sells its gear at 450 independent retail locations in Canada. An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment on the company's Canadian retail plans beyond the Toronto location.
The move continues an international expansion that began in Japan and continues with this weekend's opening of a store in London. Two more U.K. stores are also planned for next year, Apple executives said at a press tour of the London store. Apple hinted that its European plans are likely to take it beyond the British Isles. "We clearly didn't come to Europe just for the U.K.," retail executive Ron Johnson said at the London event. "You'll have to stay tuned."
News source: C|Net News.com
Cont...
"Natural challenges with finalizing all the key features and localization issues across worldwide territories have led to the difficult choice of pushing back the release date," SCEA said in a statement, "in order to ensure that Gran Turismo 4 lives up to the exacting standards of the 36 million-plus fans worldwide that have purchased previous versions."
The delay leaves egg on the face of Sony, who only last week held a high profile party in Tokyo to celebrate the "completion" of the game, and which previously removed the much-vaunted online functionality from the title in order to ensure that it came out in time for Christmas.
There's some speculation that this fresh delay - which may also have a knock-on impact on the launch date of the European version, which had already been delayed into Q1 2005 - will give the firm time to reintegrate the online component, but Sony has so far not commented on this possibility, and is still officially planning to launch a separate online-enabled Gran Turismo product later next year.
This is the first store in a new country (Canada).
There are some excellent Apple retailers in Toronto, who have a knowledge of using the product from practical use rather than what the boffins at Cupertino say should be the 'selling points'.
This is simply Apple's attempt to get in at the retail level to flog (even more) the success of the iPod - why should a retailer get a cut of the incredible profits, when you can have it all?
To quote Daffy Duck, "I want it all because I am greedy"
Besides, I maintain the moment Steve and his gang can produce a WiFi-capable iPod that can access directly the iTunes site, they'll chuck selling computers to the home market entirely - they aren't competitive with WinOS computers, the software is too expensive and do you really need all those irritating home users with their problems? An iPod that can bypass the need for a computer is practically pure profit.
Uh that's a little lame dude. Sure the initial cost maybe a bit over the cost of a pc, but the simplicity of OSX, the lack of consistently fighting off system threats, and the fact that Mac boxes simply outlast pc boxes make it a good investment. I've known many a pc box to be "upgraded" or disposed of for a newer box, while older macs just keep on running and performing fine. I'm still running and working on mind you on a 4 year old mac box, while my once "blazingly fast" pc box is now windowless running a few flavors of linux and serving files.
I'm still not sure what you mean by home users having issues? I've no issues running a wired/wireless network at home, connecting a myriad of devices to each other or the net -and i ain't no IT person by any stretch!
Apple has already shown its lack of interest in its home user iMacs in favor of iPods. What's the current ad tag line for iMacs? 'From the creators of the iPod'? Not 'From the Company that brought you true home computing' or the OS here. And when was the last time you saw a TV ad for the iMac? And the last time for the 'spastic sillouettes' ads for iPod?
Not exactly good business practice in increasing your market share (already less that 10%) in home computing.
A self-contained iPod would be the closest thing to pure profit for Apple. And if it kacks, send in the whole iPod and get a new one - none of this futzing about with Support.
Yes, Apple computers are lovely and yes, they do have their issues too - and yes, Virginia, they have their supporters. Just not enough of them.
Last edited by 43100 on 21 Nov 2004 - 22:18
http://www.apple.com/ca/education/hed/students/
somewhere to spend time when im bored
clearly
Commenting has either been disabled on this article or you are not logged in. Click here to login or register, its free!
Note: Anonymous commenting is disabled in order to keep the quality of responses to a high standard.