The most popular vehicle in the United States is going electric. Ford has revealed the F-150 Lightning, an all-electric version of its popular pickup truck due out in 2022, and it’s aggressively priced for an EV. The base model with 230 miles of range starts at $39,974, while the extended range version starts in the mid-$50,000s and can go about 300 miles.
I really like this approach: taking a regular, super-popular vehicle and turning it into an EV is a reasonable approach. I fully anticipate that my Toyota Tacoma will be the last internal combustion vehicle I own.
Apple today announced that it will open 25 retail stores across the U.S. in 2001, with the first two stores opening this Saturday, May 19, at Tysons Corner in McLean, Virginia, and the Glendale Galleria in Glendale, California.
“The Apple stores offer an amazing new way to buy a computer,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Rather than just hear about megahertz and megabytes, customers can now learn and experience the things they can actually do with a computer, like make movies, burn custom music CDs, and publish their digital photos on a personal website.”
Knowledgeable salespeople will be able to demonstrate Macs® running innovative applications like iTunes and iMovie™, as well as Mac® OS X, Apple’s revolutionary new operating system. All of the Macs are connected to the Internet, and several are connected to digital lifestyle products that complement the Mac experience, such as digital cameras, digital camcorders, MP3 players, and handheld organizers.
On its website, the company went into more detail about why the Apple Store was such an important step:
Apple currently has around 5% market share in personal computers. This means that out of one hundred computer users, five of them use Macs. While that may not sound like a lot, it is actually higher than both BMW’s and Mercedes-Benz’s share of the automotive market. And it equals 25 million customers around the world using Macs.
But that’s not enough for us. We want to convince those other 95 people that Macintosh offers a much simpler, richer and more human-centric computing experience. And we believe the best way to do this is to open Apple stores right in their neighborhoods. Stores that let people experience firsthand what it’s like to make a movie right on a Mac. Or burn a CD with their favorite music. Or take pictures with a digital camera and publish them on their personal website. Or select from over 300 software titles, including some of the best educational titles for kids. Or talk to a Macintosh “genius” at our Genius Bar. Or watch a demonstration of Mac OS X, our revolutionary new operating system, on our theater’s giant 10-foot diagonal screen.
Because if only 5 of those remaining 95 people switch to Macs, we’ll double our market share and, more importantly, earn the chance to delight another 25 million customers.
This was also used for full-page newspaper ads in areas that were home to new stores.
In this video, Steve Jobs gives a tour of what Apple came up with to lure Windows customers in:
That initial store design and layout spread across a bunch of different locations, including my own Saddle Creek store, where I was hired as a temporary salesperson for the holiday rush of 2006, before becoming a Mac Genius for a couple of years. Saddle Creek has since moved to a newer section of its shopping center and ushered in a new design for the stores.
The history of the Apple Store is an interesting one. For years, Ron Johnson was at the heart of it. In 2018, he did an interview on the now-defunct “Without Fail” podcast telling some pretty wild stories from those early days of Apple retail.
From the very first store openings to dealing with the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Apple store is how millions of people interact with Apple. It’s a bit cringe-worthy when Apple says that the stores are meeting places and town halls, but for many fans of the company and its products, there’s something special about them, even as they’ve changed and grown over the last 20 years.
The perception since the iPad Pro’s introduction is that its hardware has consistently leapfrogged its software, leaving many to wonder about the untapped potential of iPadOS and a third-party app ecosystem that could have been vastly richer and more powerful if only iPadOS allowed developers to write more complex apps. Effectively, “too good for its software” has long been the iPad Pro’s hardware mantra.
The 2021 iPad Pro, launching publicly this Friday, doesn’t alter that public perception at all. If anything, this new iPad Pro, which I’ve been testing in the high-end 12.9” flavor with 2 TB of storage for the past week, only widens the chasm between its hardware and software: it’s an absolute marvel of engineering featuring the Apple-designed M1 chip, a brand new Liquid Retina XDR display, and 16 GB of RAM1 that hints at a powerful, exciting future for its software that just isn’t here yet.
We’re counting months to opening the doors of MacPaw’s very own Apple Museum. 323 exhibits, fascinating stories about Apple’s behind the scenes, and one big mission to befriend humans and technology. Here’s how we’ve got here.
This looks really cool. I’m putting a tour of it on my nerd bucket list.
I standby my statement that orange is the right color.
Obviously hardly anyone can do this, so Jeff Nadeua has the rest of us covered:
Personally I think the best way to test out all of the different hardware-matched colors is to buy one of each iMac, but if that’s not in the budget, I guess you can look at this. I really love that teal-ish green color. pic.twitter.com/ECdP3QYBcB
Ben Lovejoy has the details, but this is about the worst thing that could happen when it comes to having cameras in or around your home. Thankfully, if you have these and have switched them over to using Apple’s HomeKit Secure Video platform, you should be good.
Update:Eufy has commented that this was due to a software bug on their servers.
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This week on Mac Power Users, David and I talked with Sal Soghoian on the history of Automator and Services on the Mac, both of which are cornerstones of automation on macOS today. We then discussed how these tools came to be and how Apple has evolved them over the years, in addition to what can be done with them.
My thanks to Sal for joining us; it was a real honor to get to interview him.
