We can haz Apple Store in Vancouver
This morning I decided to head downtown to witness the opening of the Vancouver Apple Store at Pacific Centre. This was my second Apple opening as I was at the Bellvue Square one a few years ago.
I arrived around 8am expecting to either see a huge lineup of campers already there or not much of a line. Apparently the first guy in line got there at 5:45am so it wasn’t too bad….but Apple wasn’t having a sale or giving away anything other than a free T-Shirt to the first 1000 people through the door.
Buzz Bishop shot a video of the lineup and the opening of store (I say hi to Buzz at around the 16 second mark):
Towards the end of the video you can see some very enthusiastic Apple employees high-5′ing the people in line….I was surprised how many employees were on hand but it actually is a fairly big/deep store unlike many other Apple stores that are inside malls.
Overall I’m glad there is finally an Apple Store in the area but it would have been better if it was a larger store that had a theatre with classes like many other stores I’ve been too. The training seminars they offer are usually free and it would be great for me to point friends and family to them if they wanted to find out more about Apple products. But hopefully this store will do ridiculously well it will warrant additional stores in the area (like maybe Coquitlam Centre beside the other H&M store in the area). Toronto currently has 3 stores with a 4th one in the works.
Here’s a few more shots of the store and the opening day madness. This is probably the only day that Apple will allow photography in the store too…I’ve been asked to not take photos a few times in other stores. More in my flickr stream:
Yes, there were also a lot of iPhones in attendance. The store has a few accessories for the iPhone as well but not much (yet).
All the blue or orange t-shirts are Apple staff
The Genius Bar is open for business.
My next visit to the store will most likely be on June 9th which is also the day of the WWDC keynote and when the next version of the iPhone is expected to be unveiled….and possibly even available in Canada.
Thanks goes to Derek for tagging all my photos on Flickr for me while I was rushing to get them online using the free instore wifi!
Saturday, May 24th, 2008 : Apple, Canada, Computers, Events : 9 Comments
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9 Responses to “We can haz Apple Store in Vancouver”
May 24th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Looks like they will offer courses and workshops for both adults and kids. I’m not sure _where_ in the store, but there you go.
Incidentally, ifoAppleStore notes that “in late 2005 Apple changed its mind about the theaters: new smaller stores were designed with a Studio bar instead of a theater, and existing smaller stores were scheduled for a swap-out, removing the theater and installing a Studio bar.”
May 24th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
[...] Mac fan/professional John Biehler was there, somewhere around 20th in line. In his post on the event, he makes the interesting observation that the store carried iPhone accessories, despite the lack [...]
May 25th, 2008 at 8:45 am
[...] John Biehler’s “We can haz Apple Store in Vancouver” has some brilliant photos from the launch, and it’s a good read. West coasters [...]
May 25th, 2008 at 10:31 am
I wonder if the change from theatre based training/workshops came about when they decided to do the One to One program where you pay $99 and get a dedicated person instore to show you the ropes on anything Mac related.
Hopefully the workshops are well received as I think it’s definitely a great value add to have at the store.
May 26th, 2008 at 10:13 am
[...] STORE OPENS - John Biehler, Ianiv and Arieanna, David Drucker and Pam, Lisa and a bunch of other geeks went to the Apple [...]
May 26th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Nice store …. nothing much that we can’t buy online or other stores in Vancouver already.
I tried to buy two things today but they don’t seem set up for debit customers and sent me to wait for 10 mins at the Genius Bar to pay there but I just left it (they seem to be pushing payment by credit card for some reason?!).
Lots of people seemed to just be looking.
May 27th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
[...] out some other Apple Store experiences from John Biehler and Buzz Bishop, and watch Buzz’s video of the line [...]
May 30th, 2008 at 9:23 am
[...] The Apple Store opened up downtown last week and John Biehler was there taking pics and checking the place [...]
June 1st, 2008 at 12:11 pm
[...] credit: John Biehler on Flickr. John has a great post on the Apple Store here. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Teamwork – and the elusive quest for loveMore [...]