Forgotten gifts
Plus: A new version of the Apple Store app.
Since last week’s post on the continued international expansion of Apple Vision Pro, I’ve learned about two more stores in the U.K. and Germany with Demo Zones: Apple Meadowhall and Apple Rosenstraße, which also has a window display. Thanks for your help!
Recently, a friend of the newsletter alerted me to two recent store opening gifts I’ve never seen before. It turns out that Apple gave away tote bags printed with the heritage logo at both the reopening of Apple White City in December 2022 and the completion of renovations at Apple Cardiff in June of this year.
Both of these events were scarcely documented and not heavily promoted, but when a souvenir is given, photos usually end up online. It wasn’t until two U.K. totes ended up on eBay that I found out.
After eliminating souvenirs for store reopening events around nine years ago — roughly corresponding to the introduction of Vintage D stores — we’ve seen Apple slowly reinstate the missed tradition over the past few years. A gift for White City follows that same pattern, but what’s personally shocking to me is that Apple prepared tote bags for Cardiff.
Open the store’s timeline in Facades and compare its original appearance to today — virtually nothing customer facing changed with the latest renovation. I’d bet that shoppers who didn’t know the store was temporarily closed would never guess remodeling work happened at all.
This event was probably a much bigger day for store employees, and that’s great. They deserve a gift! It just adds a bit of unique trivia to this store’s history.
Apple Store 6.0
Last Tuesday, July 16, Apple released version 6.0 of the Apple Store app. This marks the first major version number bump since 5.0 (archive link) was released back in March 2018. In the intervening years, we climbed all the way up to version 5.24.
The top level of the app has been significantly redesigned with some new or rethought tabs: For You, Products, and Go Further. It’s a bold move to make For You the primary tab in an app that’s directly responsible for hardware sales, but it definitely feels more dynamic. I’m probably in an extreme minority of users who open the app every single day hoping to see something new, so I’m interested to see if Apple uses this space to keep things feeling more fresh between product launches.
Perhaps most interesting is a new format for Today at Apple in the Go Further tab. At the top is a 2-minute short shot at Apple The Grove offering quick tips on wide-angle portraits. In China, users will see a similar short shot at Apple Jing’an featuring iPad and Apple Pencil Pro. These vertical-format videos are styled in such a way that they feel not just formatted for a phone screen, but native to the app itself. And Apple promises more are coming.
These feel like an evolution of the longer Today at Apple Creative Projects posted to YouTube, with one key difference: they’re shot primarily within the store, offering what is essentially a preview of a Today at Apple experience you could have in person. Hopefully these clips will encourage session attendance.
Featured image
Apple Lenox Square
Photo via @yugi.motta.