The Company Store
Celebrating the legacy of Apple Infinite Loop.
There are Apple Stores, and then there is The Company Store.
When Wired advised the Apple community to “Pray” in June 1997, The Company Store was there. When Steve Jobs introduced the iMac, The Company Store was there. When the iPod, iPhone, and iPad flourished beyond anyone’s wildest expectations, The Company Store was there. And in 2015, when Apple began a floor-to-ceiling redesign of its retail stores across the globe, The Company Store played its greatest role, transforming into Apple Infinite Loop, the first location in North America with the New Store Design. Apple Infinite Loop will permanently close on January 20, but the spirit of The Company Store won’t end there.
The story of Apple Infinite Loop begins at least as early as 1991, when Apple submitted drawings for “Apple R&D Campus” at 10700 N. DeAnza Blvd, Cupertino. You’ll know this address today as 1 Infinite Loop. Marked on the ground level floor plan are two retail spaces flanking the campus entrance. This might be the first ever public reference to “Apple Retail.”
The R&D Campus was completed in 1993, and Apple first promoted The Company Store with an immersive VR tour that shipped on the QuickTime VR Authoring Tools CD-ROM in 1995. The demo allowed users to explore panoramas of each department — Apple Merchandise, Newton, Performa, PowerBook, Power Macintosh, Software — and browse a selection of merchandise in 3D. I extracted the walk movie GIF above from a running copy of the demo software. If you’re interested, let me know and I might write a post that explores it in more detail.
In 1997, Apple.com invited customers to “Come Experience Apple!“:
“The journey begins. It's the start of a new season and the dawn of the 21st century. An exciting time filled with anticipation of new beginnings and fresh directions. See what Apple has to offer.”
You could always try hardware at The Company Store, but purchases were limited to software, accessories, and Apple-branded merchandise — lots of it. First there were sweatshirts, t-shirts, caps, keychains, pencils, pen sets, water bottles, mugs, wine glasses, beach balls, note cubes, watches, and Apples made of crystal. Then came colored pencil sets, notebooks, journals, mousepads, umbrellas, calculators, card holders, luggage tags, clocks, photo frames, onesies, and more. So much more!
For a time, Apple leaned in to the exclusivity. Here’s Apple.com in 2008:
“While we don't sell computers or have on-site support or repairs, we are the only place in the world that sells Apple logo t-shirts, caps and accessories. So, if you find yourself in the San Francisco Bay Area, please stop by and visit us.”
As Apple grew, the legend of The Company Store grew. This was the place where the magic happens. The next iPhone was coming to life just through the doors!
Company Store merch became coveted in the Apple community, and fans from across the globe went out of their way to navigate the sprawling office parks and asphalt fields of Cupertino in pursuit of bragging rights. The only thing better than a new store opening shirt was one right from the source. “I visited the Mothership,” one shirt read. Another: “Cupertino. 859 miles and 180° from Redmond.”
After more than 20 years, The Company Store still retained its goofy postmodern design touches and endearing Garamond sign outside the door. By the early 2010s, the store design and merchandise selection was curiously inconsistent with Apple’s modern sensibilities, but nobody seemed to mind, or even notice.
Behind the scenes, Apple had other plans. Under wraps in some undisclosed warehouse, a comprehensive rethinking of the Apple Store experience was taking shape. In June 2015, The Company Store closed for renovations. Construction began on a whole new type of store. This Company Store would be smaller, but for the first time offer Apple’s entire range of products. It was a real Apple Store, complete with a store number — R052. But most important was the design.
Reopening on the same day as Apple Brussels opened in Belgium, the pair of stores revealed many common store elements in the familiar forms you know today: Avenues, The Forum and its cube seating, the video wall, quartz walls, iPhone case drawers, and headphone heads. The new store, essentially a prototype in disguise, allowed Apple to test and tweak the store formula at home before rolling it out across the globe.
Exclusive merchandise was also totally rethought. Rather than overwhelming visitors with a vast variety of relatively cheap, mass-produced items, Apple Infinite Loop offered a small collection of high-quality, thoughtful merchandise. Special attention was given to selecting premium shirt materials and reputable suppliers. Mugs came from Hasami, water bottles from S’well. The shirts began to change more often, too, and their styles were spectacular.
Studio Coward illustrated a range of wireframe designs featuring the original iPod, Macintosh, HomePod, and more. Some featured Animoji, and others celebrated the pirate legend of the Mac. One even threw it back to 1976. It was never cooler to have a shirt from The Company Store, even if it wasn’t called that anymore.
But Infinite Loop was too small. By the time the new store opened, Apple was already working on Apple Park. In 2013, planning documents called a structure at 10600 North Tantau Avenue “Valet Parking Reception.” By February 2015, it had a new name: “Visitors Center & Parking.”
According to the plans prepared by Foster + Partners, the project was intended to “Create an easily approachable and intuitive interface with the public including spontaneous visitors,” and “Give visitors of Apple Campus 2 the opportunity to see the Main Building from the rooftop observation deck.” The spirit of The Company Store would expand in a new location, just down the street.
When Apple Park Visitor Center opened in 2017, it offered exclusive displays, a Cafe, and an impressive AR Exhibition that made the trek to Cupertino so much more rewarding. The merchandise was new and distinct from Apple Infinite Loop, giving visitors a reason to check out both stores. The Visitor Center began to grow the same legend that made The Company Store so irresistible to fans. Visiting Infinite Loop was still fun, but the new store just offered so much more. It was like 1993 all over again! Well, except for Michael Spindler, the Centris line, and the looming threat of bankruptcy.
Today the Visitor Center is objectively a better visitor experience than Apple Infinite Loop. You have your nostalgia and I have mine, but for millions of Apple fans, Apple Park is where the magic has always happened. The next Vision Pro is coming to life just through the trees!
Through this lens, the closure of Apple Infinite Loop shouldn’t have come as a shock, yet it still did. Memories are powerful. But when Apple moves a store, the company often says, “We’re still here. Just over there.” An infinite loop never ends.
If you’d like to virtually visit Apple Infinite Loop again, I invite you to give The Apple Store Time Machine a spin. My 3D recreation includes the store exactly as it appeared on grand reopening day in 2015.
Featured image
Apple Infinite Loop
Photo via @kevbrice.
wowwwwwwwww!