News/Rumors

9 P.M. curfew in Paris’s Apple Stores

The court prohibits late-night work at the retail outlets and orders Apple to pay damages to the unions that filed suit against the company. Apple has been hit with a fine and new regulations by a Paris court that has taken aim at the company’s alleged after-hours work in France.

According to the AFP, which was first to report on the ruling, the Paris Court awarded the unions that sued Apple 10,000 euros ($13,005) for its alleged violations. The court said that in some Apple stores in France, the company was asking employees to work past the 9 p.m. local time curfew in violation of the country’s labor laws.

robbers-injured-a-member-of-staff-before-grabbing-iPads-and-iPhones-at-around-9pm-last-night

Apple Stores affected by the judgment include the following locations: l’Opéra in Paris, Parly 2 in Le Chesnay, Carré Sénart in Lieusaint, Val d’Europe in Marne-la-Vallee, Cape Town 3000 in Nice, and Atlantis in Saint Herblain.

France bans companies from making employees work between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. unless those activities are necessary to maintain economic success or they provide a social service. Although Apple’s stores close at 9 p.m. in France to accommodate that regulation, the labor unions that sued the company argued that it forced employees to clean up and close down the store after 9 p.m. That meant some employees didn’t actually leave work until as late as 11 p.m. According to the AFP, seven of Apple’s stores in France have violated the law.

Although Apple has lost one case, the company isn’t quite out of the woods yet. According to the AFP, another court plans to make a ruling on the matter on April 16.

News/Rumors

Apple Store in Vancouver robbed

As reported by The Vancouver Sun, three men discharged bear repellant during a robbery of Apple’s Oakridge Centre retail store in Vancouver while the store was full of customers last night. Police say three men entered the store shortly before 7:00 PM last night while around 40 customers were in the store, discharging the spray and stealing “a small number of electronics [items]” before fleeing. Five people were treated at the scene by paramedics for the effects of exposure to the spray. A police dog unit recovered some of the stolen items but the thieves have not yet been found. The robbers are said to have fled by car.

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Most of the valuable Apple electronics are likely to have been out of reach of the robbers, as Apple Stores keep most stock in hidden storage rooms behind closed doors. Vancouver police say that the thieves made off with only “a small number of electronics.” It is not known whether there is a link to a robbery in January in the same city, where two men robbed a jewelry store at gunpoint before fleeing ‘in a cloud of bear spray’.

Apple Store robberies have been a recurring occurrence since the company first opened its specialized retail outlets. The premium nature of Apple’s products, combined with the relative ease of access to the stores, makes them a prime target for smash-and-grab operations. The New Year kicked off with word that thieves in Paris had made off with $1.3 million in Apple products from the Apple Store there. Another more recent robbery saw a thief destroying a $100,000 custom glass door to steal $64,000 in merchandise.

Apple, News/Rumors

Why Apple returns to Indonesia?

Thus proving its interest in emerging markets Apple is going to invest something like $3 million to reopen Online Store sales in Indonesia after 2 years pause .Apple’s Indonesian webpage will be getting a makeover soon when the company restarts online sales in the region. But the Official opening dates for the Online Apple Store or the Jakarta location haven`t been announced.
According to NZWeek, Indonesia’s Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) announced it approved the application earlier today, which will see Apple debut in the online space in the country first, with an eye toward opening its first Apple Store in Jakarta, the capital of the country.

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It`s obvious that such a decision will push Apple further into Asia, while still keeping the spinning plates of China’s retail stores ticking over, as the iPhone and iPad maker attempts to fill the gap from third parties who had to import products from neighboring countries, such as Singapore.
Azhar Lubis, deputy chariman of BKPM explained that money will go to the planned brick and mortar location in Jakarta. Further expenditures are expected to be spent on support of the company’s supply chain and distribution channels in the region.

Apple, News/Rumors

First Signs of Retina Graphics for Apple Store

Apple is on its way of revamping the online store with powerful, high-resolution graphics. Callum Strong, front-end developer with Fat Media, has discovered the signs of Retina graphics on Apple’s server.

On Wednesday, the Apple Store got closed for an update that, as Callum claims, was aimed for the new Retina-graphics support, meaning that the update hasn’t got live. Third generation iPad and new MacBook Pro owners still have to deal with pixelated images when browsing the Apple Store.

The updated graphics can be differentiated by the regular ones after the tag “2x” thus, retina graphics can be identified by the name store-header-footer-sprite@2x.png.

Apple began to silently upgrade the resolution of the images in the Apple Store before the third generation iPad was launched and the yesterday’s update is the proof of a wonderful work in progress.

Source: AppleInsider

News/Rumors

Nest Learning Thermostat soon on sale in Apple Stores

Tony Fadell, former Senior Vice President of Apple’s iPod division, founded Nest as a company that builds appealing electronics for indoors environments. Recently, the news that Apple will start selling the Nest Learning Thermostat through the Apple Stores started to spread. There is no information about when the selling will start but multiple Apple Stores have already begun receiving the thermostats.

One will have to pay $249 to bring the friendly Nest thermostat into his house. It is quite a spiced price for a thermostat but Nest avers that you will get your money back through energy savings that will be approved by your bills.

The Nest Learning Thermostat is an innovative electronic device, with an intuitive temperature dial, aimed to take care of your home energy consumption. Fadell’s experience back at Apple as the “father of the iPod” is obviously reflected in the design of the thermostat; it is built from brushed stainless steel and has a bright LCD screen.

Nest Thermostat programs itself depending on your daily activity and learns all your temperature adjustments, thus, in just few days it will be able to save your habits spearing you from daily settings and to turn the Auto Away feature that avoids heating or cooling the house when you’re away. You can learn more about the thermostat on Nest’s official web page.

Nest Learning Thermostat can be controlled from anywhere using your iPhone, Mac, or iPad. The Nest Mobile app is already available in the App Store.

Source: 9to5 Mac

Apple

RIM admits “Wake Up” campaign activation remitting Samsung from accusation

Earlier this week an awkward demonstration took place in front of an Apple store in Sydney. A black bus, labeled with the “Wake Up” chant, stopped in front of the Australian Apple store on George Street and loosened a crowd of vexed people that started to roll of the “Wake Up” words while waving “Wake Up” boards. Blunty was accidentally inside the shop to buy an accessory he said, and he took his time to shoot the entire event.

People rushed to accuse Samsung for the puzzling demonstration due to the close release of the new Galaxy S and to its recently hosted website that contains, among others, an ad anticipating the next Galaxy smartphone and making mean allusions to Apple users. Anyway, only one day after the protest, Samsung Electronics Australia officially denied any involvement with the protest.

During these days, on great blogs appeared comments from users revealing glitches in the ID code on the “Wake Up” countdown page that were redirecting to RIM’s website. Also, the witness of the demonstration, Blunty, turned out to be a former RIM employee. As an aftermath of these events, RIM Australia confirmed in a statement on May 1 the “Wake Up” campaign activation. Richelle Gillett, Account Director from Spectrum Communications for Blackberry admitted:

“We can confirm that the Australian ‘Wake Up’ campaign, which involves a series of experiential activities taking place across Sydney and Melbourne, was created by RIM Australia. A reveal will take place on May 7th that will aim to provoke conversation on what ‘being in business’ means to Australians.”

Judging after the flow of the events, I guess that the only one that scored big time this game was Samsung.

Source: 9to5 Mac, Macworld

Apple

Largest Apple Store in South-Eastern Europe Got Opened in Bucharest

Apple’s Premium Reseller in Romania, iStyle, opened today the largest Apple store from South-Eastern Europe.

The store, situated in Bucharest at Baneasa Shopping City Mall, is declared as the largest in this geographical area because, unlike other stores from Bucharest, Budapest or Prague, this one measures more than 310 square yards (260 square meters).

All iStyle stores are in accordance with Apple’s Business Values that define the way the Company does business worldwide and the way its channel members must cooperate, thus, each detail of this store was approved by Apple and even the furniture and the parquet for the floor were sent by the Cupertino Company. Also the white dots on the crystal-clear windows are fixed according to Apple’s specifications.

Above the store’s entrance is placed a people-monitoring device which sends real time details to Apple’s headquarters. Also, unlike other iStyle stores, this one is offering free trainings and workshops to its clients using Apple devices and applications.

Apple, News/Rumors

By the end of 2012, Apple aims in opening 3 new stores in Germany

Apple is definitely having great expectations when it comes to retail stores. Starting from Italy, South Perth, Vancouver, Stockholm, India and moving next to Germany (Berlin, Stuttgart and Cologne). Rumors that a new store will open its doors is in the wind since November 2011 but now Apple began listing recruitment strategies for stores in Berlin, Stuttgart, Cologne and also in other 8 existing stores from Germany.

Apple is constant in what concerns its activities and it regularly takes around 6 months to officially open a store from when it begins with recruitment opportunities. We don’t think Germany will be treated differently.

The Next Web highlights the idea of opening even more Apple stores:

The company expects to open 40 new stores in 2012, three-quarters of them to be located outside the U.S, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said last year. In order to achieve its target, Apple has set aside $900 million of its anticipated $8 billion 2012 investment to go towards expanding its retail outlets, having opened more than 30 new stores in 2011 alone.

By the end of 2012, Apple will have opened nearly 400 stores worldwide, with the company expected to increase its presence in China, a country that CEO Tim Cook believes is “key” to Apple’s future.

 

Apple, iPad

Third generation iPad sales brings Apple a new record

Judging after how the iPad purchase rolled on Friday in Japan and at Wallmart and Apple stores, the Company might have an auspicious coming as it counted for the first time a share price of $600.

Apple fans queued in lingering lines in front of the stores with days before the iPad launch. Meanwhile, Apple employees dressed in blue T-shirts were bustling inside the stores. With minutes before the 8:00 a.m. release, they reached the fans and cheered and counted down together the last 10 seconds that announced the encounter with the third generation iPad.

Everybody left the stores charmed by the new acquisition.

“I’ve come from Russia to buy an iPad for my three-year-old son David,” Oleg Konovalov said with enthusiasm.

“After this, well, I’ll first of all open it up and check it’s as beautiful as I thought. Then I’ll get some sleep,” said Shintaro Aizawa with a tired voice but with a glee in its eyes.

“I’ve got all their stuff. Everything works together. It’s so beautifully integrated, it’s so streamlined,” said Jonathan Hakim, 22, a doctoral student and wedding photographer.

“I wanted to be the first person in Japan to get the new iPad,” said Inoue, who already owns the previous two models. “I’m proud of it.”

All the waiting and the enthusiasm got wasted in a photos folly that for some of the Apple fans reached a bragging degree. All in all, Apple’s share price hit $600 and it is expected to grow to $710 according to a Canaccord Genuity estimates and Gartner expects tablet sales to increase to 326 million by 2015, though the iPad has two strong rivals on the market, namely the Galaxy Tab and the Xyboard

Source: Bloomberg and Reuters

iPad, News/Rumors

Queues in front of the Apple Store in Japan

First in line is the Japanese fellows’ motto that wanted to be the first ones that got their hands on the new iPad. The expected gadget will reach Apple Stores in US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Switzerland, UK, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands at 8:00 am local time tomorrow, March 16, which by “virtue of Tokyo being 16 hours ahead of California” meaning that Japanese Apple fans are the first ones to get the latest version of the iPad.

Starting with March 23 the Apple device can be purchased in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Macau, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.

Sticking to Japanese iPad fans, they are already lined up in front of the Apple Store, in the Ginza district of Tokyo. It’s said that the lines began growing on Thursday night local time, meaning 36 hours before the big opening.

Source: The Next Web