It’s a big weekend for Apple retail. Across the United States and Australia, five Apple stores reopened or relocated Saturday to new and expanded spaces. Each store brings with it a unique design and layout, replacing aging locations no longer suited for Apple’s contemporary retail ideals. 9to5Mac visited Apple Deer Park’s grand opening in Illinois to bring you photos of the new space, and readers across the world have sent us their own photos to share.

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The promise of true “point-and-shoot” photography with the iPhone has always eluded me. Each year, more advanced camera hardware and new iOS features have improved my photos. Yet, when it comes time to capture a scene, I’m temporarily removed from the moment.

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With every Apple product launch, possibilities arise for new features to change the ways we use our devices and expand our current capabilities. Yesterday’s releases of iOS 12 and watchOS 5 include several changes that build upon existing technologies to create more compelling user experiences. Combined with new iPhone and Apple Watch models announced last week and shipping this Friday, fall’s releases open the door to a world of new skills for users to learn.

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(Top Photo: Yota Suzuki)

Nearly 15 years after opening its first store outside of the United States in Tokyo’s Ginza district, Apple has reiterated its fondness for Japan with a modern store for an ancient city – Kyoto. The store is positioned as a cultural centerpiece for the region, marking a key milestone in Apple’s renewed investment in Japan.

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Since the introduction of a new retail design language in 2015, Apple has remodeled or moved well over 60 of its existing stores in order to better serve the growing demand for Apple products and customer support. The majority of these refreshed stores have been among the earliest opened, some dating back to the start of Apple’s in-house retail efforts in 2001. Surprisingly, one of the last early stores remaining relatively unchanged and in dire need of expansion is located in Bloomington’s Mall of America.

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East Bay residents have a new store to explore. This morning at 10:00 A.M. in Walnut Creek, CA, Apple opened their latest retail location to the public. 9to5Mac attended the grand opening to check out the store’s design details and see how the new space will bring the full Today at Apple experience to Walnut Creek.

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“We will know we have done really great if it feels like a town square,” explained Apple’s SVP of Retail Angela Ahrendts in May 2016. Ahrendts was specifically referring to Apple’s flagship Union Square store in San Francisco, but the goal was part of a broader initiative to reimagine the experience of all Apple retail stores.

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One of the most significant design opportunities in recent history was announced with a simple blog post on Apple’s website. “Let me just say it: We want native third-party applications on the iPhone, and we plan to have an SDK in developers’ hands in February,” Steve Jobs wrote. On a quiet Thursday morning less than a year later, the App Store opened to iPhone users with a selection of just over 500 apps.

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Looking at Apple’s recent history of new product launches, it seems that delays are the norm rather than the exception.

AirPods were originally promised for late October 2016, and actually went on sale in mid-December. HomePod was announced in June 2017, promised for December 2017, and wasn’t actually available until February 2018. In both cases, Apple missed the all-important holiday gift season, which undoubtedly hurt launch sales.

The Mac Pro isn’t technically late, as the company said only that it would go on sale ‘after 2017,’ but it was announced in April 2017 and a year later Apple said it would be sometime in 2019 – which is a lengthy wait by anyone’s standards.

Then there’s AirPower …

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“What did you think of the keynote?” was the default greeting last week in San Jose. This year’s WWDC was the second to return to the McEnery Center, and the first I had the opportunity to be in town for. I’ve spent the last few days collecting my thoughts on the week’s events, and more than any new software feature, what stood out to me was the welcoming and enthusiastic Apple community around WWDC.

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An empty table, a patch of artificial turf, and a room full of tiny, 3D printed beds: not exactly the kinds of displays you’d expect to see in an exhibition about the future of technology and art. But seeing the future sometimes requires a little extra vision – in this case – augmented reality. Adobe is betting big on AR with The Festival of the Impossible, a three-day immersive art exhibition that firmly restates the company’s collaboration with Apple on creative tools and the democratization of technology.

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This weekend, thousands of developers from across the world will arrive in San Jose for Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference. Outside of sessions and labs, the week has historically given many attendees the opportunity to explore the Bay Area’s fascinating cities from their own perspective. Inspired by the same unique landscape and architecture, one artist has embraced Apple’s creative tools to help her capture Silicon Valley as she sees it.

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Twelve short months ago, Today at Apple sessions rolled out to Apple stores worldwide. Since then, thousands of free programs spanning a range of creative topics, from learning how to use Swift Playgrounds to taking a sketch walk in the community have been held daily. The sessions have become a key part of Apple’s recent retail philosophy which aims to reimagine Apple stores as modern-day town squares. With a full year in the books, it’s a fitting time to review the growth of Today at Apple, how well it has remained true to its goals, and what may be in store for year two.

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Last week, Apple celebrated 20 years of the iMac. Major anniversaries are today relatively uncommon for the company, but will become increasingly prevalent in the future. Now 42 years old, Apple is a cornerstone in the technology industry. With such a rich and unique history, Apple’s products and values deserve to be properly catalogued through an official digital archive.

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Twenty years ago this Sunday, Apple introduced the first iMac to the world, a radically inventive computer that reshaped the consumer market and helped re-establish Apple as the industry leader in design and usability. Yesterday, we documented the iMac’s design evolution from 1998 through today.

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A 20th anniversary is a milestone worthy of celebration in its own right, but even more so when describing a computer. Few technology products boast such a feat in an industry where changing customer preference and exponential technical advancement can quickly obsolete even the most well-considered plans.

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Silver aluminum, once the defining look of Apple products, has been met with increasing variety over the last several years by a range of colors and finishes that customers can choose from. One of the earliest and most popular options – space gray – has permeated across almost every product line Apple offers.

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Over this past holiday weekend, T-Mobile opened a new Signature Store in the heart of downtown San Francisco. While the shop’s bright magenta signage doesn’t betray the building’s past, Apple fans may remember the site at the corner of Stockton and Ellis streets as the former home of Apple’s flagship San Francisco store.

After nearly 17 years operating their own retail stores, many of Apple’s older locations have been remodeled and expanded as the company outgrows smaller spaces and changing technology commands an ever-evolving store layout. Many stores have relocated altogether, moving to larger and more desirable mall corridors, or across town to livelier shopping districts with greater foot traffic. What happens to these old storefronts after Apple moves out? We’ve tracked down every former Apple store to see what they look like today.

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HomePod reviews almost universally agreed on two things: the speaker sounds incredibly impressive for the size and price, and Apple’s smart speaker is the least-smart one on the market. Both Amazon’s Echo and Google’s Home speakers were found to be significantly more capable when it comes to answering questions and carrying out tasks.

This is not, of course, coincidence. Amazon opens its Alexa ‘recipes’ up to any third-party developer, and Google has long snaffled-up as much data as it can to make its smart assistants as capable as possible. Apple, in contrast, carefully controls the personal data available to both itself and to third-party developers …

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To celebrate the launch of our new HomeKit Weekly series, we’ve teamed up with FIBARO to give away a HomeKit bundle to turn your house into a Siri-controlled smart home. HomeKit Weekly is a new series focused on smart home accessories, automation tips and tricks, and everything to do with Apple’s smart home framework.

Our giveaway bundle includes The Button, the company’s new HomeKit-compatible micro-sized hardware switch that goes up for preorder in the US this week. Check out FIBARO’s newest HomeKit line up and the four products we’ve packaged (a total value of $250+ USD) to give you the ultimate HomeKit experience below:

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At a time when design trends and tastes seem to fluctuate with increasing speed, one image has remained remarkably persistent: the Apple logo. Often remixed but never replaced, the symbol has been continuously in use in one form or another since graphic designer Rob Janoff first sketched it in 1977. 9to5Mac talked with Janoff about his time working with Steve Jobs, the perspective gained from working over 40 years in the design industry, and an upcoming creative collaboration.

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For many iPhone X owners, two of the most hotly anticipated upcoming Apple products are accessories. Both previewed during last fall’s keynote address at Steve Jobs Theater, the AirPower wireless charging mat and AirPods wireless charging case arrive on the heels of another high-profile Apple accessory – the HomePod.

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The introduction of iOS 8 in 2014 brought the Health app to our iPhones and marked a milestone in Apple’s efforts to help people live healthier lives. The success of the Apple Watch in the following years brought a renewed consciousness to healthy living to millions of customers. Now that the Health app is turning into a critical tool for managing medical data, let’s take a look at how it could become even more friendly and motivating to a growing community.

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When Apple announced HomePod during last year’s WWDC, I observed the introduction with only passing interest. Music had taken a back seat in my life. While I was fascinated by HomePod’s design, I never thought that I’d end up with one on my desk several months later.

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