The title of the world’s largest Apple Store has moved around the world a few times, but the location Apple announced four years ago as its biggest flagship store opens on Saturday in Dalian, China. The store is in the spectacular-looking Olympia 66 shopping mall at 66 Wusi Lu in the Xigang District of the popular tourist city.
You can see more photos of the mall below …
Apple plans to relocate its main Chicago, Illinois retail store from its current location at 679 North Michigan Avenue to a newer flagship space at the edge of the Chicago River, reports Crain’s Chicago Business. According to the report, Apple will likely build “a new glass structure” in front of a 35-story office building as an entry to the Apple Store, with most of the store “below ground” in a design resembling the iconic Fifth Avenue Apple Store in New York City.
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Microsoft has confirmed its rumored plan to open what it describes as its “first flagship store” on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, a few blocks away from Apple’s glass-cubed flagship store, reports the WSJ.
“As our first flagship store, it will serve as the centerpiece of our Microsoft Stores experience,” said David Porter, corporate vice president for Microsoft retail stores. “This is a goal we’ve had since day one—we were only waiting for the right location. And now we have it.”
Apple has revamped its plans for a new flagship San Francisco store in Union Square after concerns that a popular bronze fountain and sculpture would be removed, and that the building design wouldn’t offer sufficient visual interest from the exterior, reports SFGate.
Apple has presented city officials with a revised design for the flagship store it wants to build across from Union Square at Post and Stockton streets. And where the initial proposal in May consigned the fountain to an unknown fate, it now will stand amid steps leading up to a plaza between the back of the Apple Store and the side of the Grand Hyatt San Francisco.
The building design, designed to provide 45 percent more space than its existing Stockton store, also faced accusations that the steel and glass cube would be too boring for passers-by. Apple now plans a full-height window and skylight in what was to have been a featureless wall, and to set the glass frontage back to create a more interesting shape.
Apple’s US stores are the most profitable retail spaces in the country, beating even Tiffany and Harrods in earnings per square foot.
Via MacRumors
We’re hearing it is perhaps weeks from being open but this evening you are seeing the enormity of this store in Hong Kong’s IFC shopping complex. That is a four story tall red Apple which spans three lanes of traffic for those measuring at home.
Update: Reader Joe send in this shot from inside:
Update 2: Engadget has nabbed some higher-resolution pictures. They also say the store opens September 24th!