Apple Store: into a difference universe
Photography by Zina Larbi
Assel Issayeva shares her experience of visiting London’s flagship Apple Store.
235 Regent Street, Mayfair. This is where Apple, the American multinational technology giant, opened its first retail store in Europe back in 2004. Their grand London flagship store stands tall to this day, just off the huge junction with Oxford Street. Its white flag proudly waves the “bitten apple” logo in the wind, signalling its presence among a myriad of stores on one of the busiest streets of the city. The grand, established, even royal façade is made up of colossal glass-paned Victorian arched windows. Looming over you, they are imposing yet inviting at the same time, giving you a look into the secret world of the Apple Store.
Walking into the building gives no relief from the bustle of the street. In fact, it may even be busier than the streets of swarming shoppers outside. Apple envelops the customer straight from the doorstep. The piercing bright bulbs light up the space, reflecting off the white panelled ceilings and white floors made to look like cobblestones. The first thing that pops out is the massive screen on the back wall of the space. Tall green trees add on to the atmosphere, lined up on both sides of the store, balancing out the shop’s otherwise lack of colour as well as adding an element of nature. Ironically, they fit in so well they seem to be growing from the ground but instead of sunrays, the plants feed off the constant buzz of the shop – a jungle like no other.
I came in on a Wednesday evening as the store was hosting a talk with fashion’s young designers, even bringing in mannequins to demonstrate the clothing. It might seem strange to walk into a mini fashion show at a tech store, but the events held as part of “Today at Apple” do not shy away from anything, whether it is DJing classes or coding for kids. Anyone can take part in the class by sitting on one of the wooden cube chairs that are randomly strewn in front of the screen like building blocks. With both children and adults roaming around, it looks like a mini playground.
One part of the otherwise open space, however, was separated by a retractable belt barrier behind which an employee was selling the brand’s newest wireless earbuds. The tall, friendly, 22-year-old Indian guy in dirty Air Forces, black jeans and the signature Apple t-shirt approached me first, wondering if I needed help and happily agreeing to chat. When I asked him for his take on the success that the company has seen, his answer was that Apple is built on a set of never-changing principles that they do anything to achieve. “They turned a laptop into a tiny phone!” he exclaims, proudly presenting the latest iPhone 11 Pro in his hand. He has only worked here for two weeks yet has loved the brand for as long as he can remember. A self-described tech-head since childhood, he calls Steve Jobs his role model in the same obvious manner that you would call the sky blue. Having previously worked at KFC and the London Eye, he came to Apple because of his own personal experience as a customer. “I see it as a dream job, as stupid as that sounds,” he laughs. Even getting up at 6:40 in the morning to make it in time for the 8am shift does not cast a shadow over the job description. He just has more time to talk to people, which is evidently what he loves to do and why, more than any IT qualifications or computer literacy, Apple hired him in the first place. According to him, you don’t really need IT qualifications as much as you need people skills. “You can acquire knowledge, but you cannot acquire personality,” he explains.
Photography by Zina Larbi
Whatever the hiring policy at Apple may be, they have found over 600 personalities to employ just at their Regent Street branch. All sporting the dark blue t-shirt marked by a small white fruit on the right side of the chest, they resemble Santa’s little helpers. The wide staircases in the back of the store extend on either side of the screen and lead your gaze up to the second floor, only to reveal more employees in navy ready to go. The right side of the first floor also hosts a doorway towards an elevator and probably a staff room, since groups of Apple workers come out of there every five minutes. If holiday season lasted all year long, the North Pole could open headquarters in Mayfair because the store churns out new helpers like a conveyor belt. Hurrying around throughout the store, iPhones and iPads in hand, they are looking for their next appointment to save someone’s drowned computer or help them find the right Mac out of the twenty available variations. In fact, yet another Apple worker in his twenties told me about his latest sale: a clueless customer came in asking for the $5000 desktop iMac only to leave with the iPad mini. That right there is the company’s key to success. They know what the customer wants when the customer does not even know it.
Apple Inc. was worth $6 billion in October 2001 when it first launched the iPod. The company wasted no time and spread at a rate that any rainforest would be jealous of. In 2007, the first iPhone was presented to the world. Their value shot up to $106 billion. More recently, the beginning of August in 2018 brought another monumental record. Apple became the first public company to be worth $1 trillion. Its long-time rival, Microsoft, was left in the dust. This year, for the ninth time in a row, the tech giant came out first in Forbes’ annual list of the world’s most valuable brands. Samsung, a South Korean multinational electronics company founded seven years earlier, was in seventh place.
The number of gadgets on sale only keeps increasing: a wearable skin tracker to measure exposure to UV rays and pollution, golf caddies with built-in AI systems, drones, Harry Potter coding wands and a “tiny gym in your pocket”. The wide selection keeps getting wider. On the 11th November, there was a leak of an internal presentation to employees, revealing the corporation’s plan to release an augmented reality headset in 2022 with a sleeker model coming in 2023. It would overlay the real world with virtual information, showing the user mapped out directions on the streets of the city or pop-up facts about the buildings they pass. Apple claims that in approximately a decade, smartphones will become obsolete. Yet again, they are calling the shots and telling people what to put on their wish list in three years’ time.
Hi-tech headsets may seem too weird a novelty for people to buy, but one visit to any of the business’ locations will change anyone’s mind. The rows and rows of laptops, phones, headphones, tablets and colourful watch straps are surrounded by just as many customers. A man in pink sweatpants is playing with the camera settings, moving the iPhone closer and further away from his face. A pair of teenage girls is asking a salesperson to take a picture of them using a new camera update. A dad with a stroller is testing an iPad by signing his name with a digital Apple pencil. An out-of-breath couple runs in, dragging along suitcases, looking to get their hands on the newest wireless headphones before their flight. The Apple store is its own universe, with its own diverse and international citizens to match.