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A new kind of Apple Store is opening on Saturday.
Across the street from the iconic San Francisco store, Apple is opening a new flagship aimed at being more than just a store. The trademark 42-foot glass doors will open to a kind of Apple-designed public forum, with a conference room, advice for small businesses, concerts, and a layout that blurs the line between inside and outside.
"This is not just a store," Angela Ahrendts, Apple's senior vice president of retail and online stores, said in a Thursday press release. "We want people to say, 'Hey, meet me at Apple.... Did you see what's going on at Apple?"
Apple is not the first business to engaged in an aesthetic revamp for physical store locations. More and more large companies have taken a designer's eye to rebuilding or in some cases building stores to for greater aesthetics, layout, and convenience.
What would you do if you had $100 billion in cash sitting in the bank?
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Tuesday May 24 2016, @07:14PM
Apple has enormous mindshare and marketshare among the decision making crowd, and yet inexplicably has refused to become business-friendly. Many midsize and larger operations have Macs for either graphic arts or web design work, so they are in the workplace. For whatever reason, Apple would rather sell lots of one and two computers rather than hundreds at a pop by marketing them to organizations. So if I had a 100 billion electronic dollars, I'd have Marketing and R&D get Macs into the 3-to-5 year business computer replacement cycle.
Why hasn't Apple ever bothered with this?
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(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 24 2016, @07:47PM
I think that given the current situation with Windows 10, Apple has a unique opportunity to appeal to people like me; folks who set the IT road map but have avoided Apple for numerous reasons. While I resist now, the reality is that I'm facing an inevitable W10 migration at some point. Unfortunately, Linux just isn't an option but if Apple were to convince me that their OS wasn't the same shitty malware infection as Windows then I would consider switching. I just spent two decades keeping our networks clean but now the OS has become the malware. Fix this problem, Apple, and you'll win my business! I don't give a fuck about your silly hipster store...
(Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Tuesday May 24 2016, @08:12PM
I don't know how big you business is, but I find it strange that Linux is "not an option" while Apple is, despite avoidance for over a decade.
I will just leave this here:
Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software [gnu.org]
(Score: 1) by tractatus_techno_philosophicus on Tuesday May 24 2016, @08:13PM
I'm glad to see I'm not the only person sharing this sentiment. Apple-culture aside, I am indeed considering purchasing an iMac at some point. I've used Linux exclusively since Windows 10 came out, and as much as I adore it, it can't fulfill my music production needs. The popular DAWs for Linux are unusable for the bulk of music producers due to software which breaks with every new distribution release and virtually no support from audio hardware manufacturers. Wine is not an option either, as DAWs which utilize ASIO won't work properly on Wine or even a VM (rendering CoreAudio unusable as well if I were going the Mac OS route). If I were to purchase an iMac, I would use it for all my audio/video/imaging needs and remain on Xubuntu for everything else. All of this because Microsoft has completely lost their minds. If I could still use the latest version of Windows with a sane GUI and without Big Brother recording my every action, I'd still use Windows for my production needs. I'll never be able to leave Linux as my primary OS though. It's too damn fast and secure for daily computing, and I'm spoiled to it.
No moral system can rest solely on authority. ~A.J. Ayer
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Tuesday May 24 2016, @08:49PM
JACK is the Free Software low latency sound system. (Though I have not actually successfully configured it myself yet).
I find my sound works much better if I just remove pulseaudio (which is apparently a recommended, but not required package for most Desktop Environments).
(Score: 1) by tractatus_techno_philosophicus on Tuesday May 24 2016, @09:16PM
I was actually able to successfully configure JACK recently, but couldn't get any DAW to work with it (most notably Ardour4, which crashed upon the creation of a new project every time). JACK wasn't the problem, rather every natively-compiled Linux DAW I've attempted to run, and don't even get me started on LMMS; I don't care if it is free. That DAW is garbage. Audacity is the only audio (in this case sampling) program which has operated flawlessly for me on Linux, and I wish it had the same multi-track and "overall project" functionality as Cubase. If so, I'd be in business. I understand that multimedia production isn't Linux's strong suite, nor do I expect it to be. It performs every other daily task flawlessly for me, and that's incredible. Until it's capable of professional-quality multimedia production, it seems Apple is the only way to go if your aim (like mine) is to avoid Microsoft entirely.
No moral system can rest solely on authority. ~A.J. Ayer
(Score: 1) by nethead on Tuesday May 24 2016, @09:20PM
Because it's not just the desktops, it's the back of house stuff Domain controllers and calendaring/mail systems that Microsoft supports. Apple doesn't have an "Exchange" server, hell they don't even have a Lotus (IBM) Domino server. Is there a third enterprise level mail/calendaring system that I'm forgetting? Sure, you can make OSX work with those, but not with near the integration that you get with an enterprise version of Windows and an Active Directory domain controller.
How did my SN UID end up over 3 times my /. UID?
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Wednesday May 25 2016, @02:11PM
With 100 Billion Dollars they can't make something better than Office/Outlook/Exchange?
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(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday May 25 2016, @11:47AM
Apple rules lawfirms, though, for some reason I've never been able to fathom; they certainly don't care about graphics. They were also one of the last bastions of LotusNotes.
Washington DC delenda est.