A season to celebrate
One more new store before year's end and 20 years of Apple Stores in Japan.
Apple will end 2023 on a high note with the grand opening of Apple Birkdale Village on December 14 at 10:00 a.m. This store replaces* Apple Northlake Mall, which suddenly closed in March.
Birkdale Village is a mall in Huntersville, North Carolina, which is about eight miles by car from Charlotte, where Northlake Mall sits. Apple Birkdale Village is an outdoor store located at the intersection of Townley Rd. and Lindholm Dr.
Apple confirmed this store opening back in June, though it was originally promised for early 2024. As always, if you attend the opening, I’d love to share your photos. Drop me a line at any time.
20 years in Japan
November 30 marked 20 years of Apple Retail Stores in Japan. Apple Ginza was Apple’s first location outside of the United States when it opened in 2003.
Deirdre O’Brien gave an interview in celebration of the milestone, and I was glad to hear this news (paraphrased from translation):
We are very happy to be able to open our new store in Ginza. The opening is scheduled for the second half of 2025. We look forward to providing another wonderful space in the heart of Ginza.
In addition, the first phase of renovations at Apple Shinsaibashi will be completed before the end of the year. The store has been under construction since August. Apple Ginza moved to a temporary location in August 2022.
A chat with Steve Cano
One of the more notable people at Apple Ginza’s grand opening 20 years ago was Steve Cano. Cano began working at Apple before the first stores opened and left in 2020, serving for a time as Vice President, Head of Worldwide Apple Retail Stores. He’s now at Levi Strauss.
I recently found this fantastic and in-depth interview between Cano and Paul Chapuis of OnQ Solutions.
Cano recounts his early experiences before the launch of Apple Stores and his memories of opening Apple Ginza, including the incredible line that formed at the grand opening:
And when we opened up our store in Tokyo, the Ginza, we had people that ran all the way down to the train station, which is half a mile away. And the line lasted from the moment we opened until we closed the store.
There are many fascinating tidbits in this interview, and I highly recommend giving it a watch if you’re at all interested in the history of Apple Retail.
Pink Pop Up
By now you’ve probably seen this oddly intriguing clip of Apple Fifth Avenue filled with surreal pink bubbles. Apple posted the video on Instagram last week with the caption “Rolling out Pink in the Big Apple.”
The editing is realistic enough that I was, for more than a moment, very confused by what was going on. According to Apple, it’s a “digital art ad celebrating the Pink iPhone.” I needed to learn more than that.
Since publication, Apple amended the video to credit digital artist Ian Padgham with the incredible CGI work. If you’re old enough, you might remember Ian from his popular stop motion videos on Vine.
Out of curiosity, I studied the clip frame by frame and landed on the moment pictured above, where I discovered that the footage inside the store was shot sometime after the launch of iPhone 15 but before November 3, when holiday graphic panels were installed. You can spot the “Newphoria” text on the glass cube and an iPhone 15 graphic peeking above the staircase.
Featured image
Apple Dubai Mall
Photo via @ma_r_lab.
*What denotes a store “replacement” vs. a “move” vs. a wholly new store can be debated. For example, Apple SoNo Collection replaced Apple Stamford — the two share a store number, but are located in completely different cities. Apple Walnut Creek moved to Apple Broadway Plaza — the two share a store number, and are located in the same mall. By contrast, Apple Carrousel du Louvre closed to make way for a wholly new store, Apple Champs-Élysées. Both have unique store numbers. Apple Birkdale Village sits somewhere in between. It has a new store number — R796 — but was explicitly announced as a replacement for Apple Northlake Mall. I hope that clears things up.