Tokyo Apple Store Opens Tomorrow
 

A new 5-story Apple store will open tomorrow here in Tokyo in a district called "the Ginza." For those of you that have never heard of it, the Ginza is THE Rodeo Drive of the world...swank and super expensive. To buy a 5-story building there is probably the equivalent of buying...oh, say downtown Cleveland.

That says a lot for Apple's commitment to bolstering its overseas presence. It'll be interesting to see if and how much it increases Apple's sales in Japan.

Ooooh.

Here's the Apple page on the new Ginza store.

Correction: "4-story building"...so that would be like buying downtown Des Moines, I guess. ;)

Thanks for the link, Ken.

Ooooh (2).

Hai!

IT'S OPEN NOW?!

(Sound of rushing wind as a trail of desktop papers swirls toward the closing door)

I hope the Mac is more popular over there than the Xbox. What works in the US doesn't always work in Japan. How big is this 5 story building? I have a hard time believing Apple has anough product to fill it all. The Apple Stores I've been into are mostly hardwood floor and seem pretty barren... only 1 level! :)

They just opened one in Marlton NJ, just a few miles from my home, so I went to check it out the other day. First time I've been in an Apple Store. It's in a very upscale little shopping center. It's pretty much as you describe Ted, not a lot of stuff there but everything is displayed in a very sexy way. Lots of open space in there, much more than one would normally expect in a store that size. But they did have all the current Macs available along with digital cameras, DV cameras, etc. that you could hook up and play with. One relatively small bookcase with software, a couple other shelves with cables and accessories. There were about 6 salespeople hanging around and only maybe 3 customers. I spent a few bucks on some backup software and screen cleaning cloths. The cash registers are iMacs and the credit card readers have color LCD screens that display OS X style dialog boxes, pretty amusing :-)

I know in the past that Apple has stated the stores are not really expected to make any money, but were primarily a way to put Macs and knowledgeable staff into affluent areas where people could experience them. Same thing for the iTunes store, which evidently doesn't make any money either; it's a vehicle to sell iPods. With Apple's multi-billion dollar cash hoard they can affort such a strategy.

As a long time Apple shareholder I'm down about 20%, but my Microsoft stock is down 30%...

Apple retail made a $1 million dollar profit during the most recent quarter. Total sales (retail units) for the quarter was reported at
$193 million. This is considered very successful considering the expenses involved in starting a retail operation. Ron Johnson, the VP for retail operations has never stated that the retail units would not return a profit.

The iTunes store is operating on a different strategy, but is also expected to return a profit within 2 years.

Hopefully Apple's presence in Tokyo and Osaka will be seen as "koo-ru" (cool) by enough Japanese shoppers to give a push to camcorder manufacturers re compatibility issues. I would like to be able to download occasional mpeg4 files to something other than WMP (wimp?) or some proprietary player, for example. And it's pretty annoying that Panasonic's new credit card size "toy," which records mpeg2 and mpeg4, uses software that is not even QT compatible.

Vaguely related to this... was just reading the current issue of Fortune Magazine which has a review of Dell's new iPod-like device (Dell Unveils Its iPod Kryptonite, by Peter Lewis). They compare it to Bizarro, Lex Luthor's messed up Superman clone, "Coming from the square world of Dell instead of the hip world of Apple, it's bigger, heavier, and clunkier than Apple's sleek, suave, elegant iPod, which arrived on the scene two years ago and quickly became the most popular portable digital music player on our home planet, Earth. Even worse, the Musicmatch-backed Dell Music Store is the clumsy, Bizarro counterpart to Apple's brilliant iTunes Music Store."

He continues: "Bizarro, the pathetic wretch, was driven mad by constant comparisons with the handsome, smart, and sexy Superman he was meant to emulate. So too must the DJ suffer from inevitable comparisons with the iPod, with its two-year headstart. If the iPod did not exist, the DJ might even lay claim to the title of Best Portable Music Player Since the Sony Walkman.

But the iPod does exist, and so do Apple iTunes and the Apple iTunes Music Store, and thus the Dell DJ is doomed to be merely the second-best player on the market.

In other words, we must praise the DJ with faint damns."

Later in the review the author writes: "Musicmatch is my favorite Windows-based online music service. That's like saying a prostate exam is my favorite invasive procedure."

I know we're veering slightly off-topic here, but Boyd's remarks prompted me to chime-in on the iPod, iTunes and the Apple music store. The integration of these three is so marvelously, and devilishly, seamless and seductive there should be warning posted somewhere. I am not a music-driven animal. Silence is gerally my favorite tune. But I do have an iPod and listen to music and other material a few times per week.

Until a few weeks ago I had not ventured forth from iTunes into the Apple music store. But momentary boredom prompted me to explore it one day. Over an hour later I stuporifically emerged from the Apple music store as if dumped at my door by a kidnapper, perhaps $30 poorer as the result of my iPod and iTunes banks being swollen by several classical and oldies albums. I've not returned lately because I'm still trying to figure out what happened to me.

It's a cool, albeit impoverishing, experience.

I would be angry paying for compressed sound files. Bleh.

Update: I haven't gotten in yet. Went by Saturday and Sunday and each day there was a 300 meter long waiting line...with a little guy in uniform at the end of the line holding a sign that read "Tail End." (I asked him if he's marking the end of the line, or if he just has a poor self-image).

When the wait to get in is less than an hour, I'll let you guys know.

Finally got in today. It was nice to see a few new things, but overall no surprises.

As for the "Genius Bar"...I hit them with a few questions, and all I can say is, if they're "Mac geniuses", then Jeff, Ken, Don and all the other Mac people here at DVInfo.net qualify as "Mac Omnipotent Beings."

Next time I'm up in Tokyo I'll stop in there. I doubt they would make an Apple store down here in Osaka, the most we have is an Apple floor at Sofmap.

Macs are pretty popular here in Japan, all my friends use Macs, even my upstairs neighbor became a switcher. The wedding hall I shoot video for has 4 iMacs in their office, and I've seen several computer schools that use only Macs, even all the Kinkos have G4's that you can use. BTW John, Rob actually got hired to work at the Ginza Apple Store but he found another job that he can do video editing/shooting at so he didn't take the Apple job. I'm sure he knows more than all the Ginza employees put together.

Rik,

I believe they intend to open one in Osaka next.

John,
I hope they do, they don't have enough Mac stuff down here. I'll be the first in line to check it out. It will be nice to walk into a store and not see a windows machine in sight.

I went to a techno event last saturday and all the staff, dj's had powebooks/iBooks. Slowly but surely we are catching up and one day we will rule the world!!! oopps, got a little carried away, Apple fever, but yeah, an Apple store is needed in Osaka, my wife probably won't want one to open up here, she knows I'm gonna spend all my extra money there.

I couldn't find an external DVD burner that is compatible with DVD Studio Pro at Sofmap so I had to order one from MCE Technologies. Hurry up Apple and open up a store down here.

<<<-- Originally posted by John Locke : ...with a little guy in uniform at the end of the line holding a sign that read "Tail End." (I asked him if he's marking the end of the line, or if he just has a poor self-image). -->>>

You can see that guy right here...

Yes, indeed! And it looks like someone else might be asking him the same question!

Why is the sign in English? Is there a Japanese equivalent on the other side?

Holy cow! I wonder what day that was. See the covering over the sidewalk? That's some construction going on across the street. That means that on the day this picture was taken, the line even wrapped across the street. I can't imagine how long those people waited in line.

Thanks for the pic, Mark.

<<Why is the sign in English? Is there a Japanese equivalent on the other side?>>

Ha! You know, I didn't even think about that, Patricia. Good question. No...it was only in English. I guess because only we gaijins would pester the poor guy with questions all day à la "You mean THIS is the end of the line?"

Actually, thinking about it, the sign bearer is probably expected to be able to tell the Japanese who ask that it is the end of the line. The sign (besides helping him with the importunate, impatient gaijin) just gives him something to laugh about with them - the unfortunate gaijin who don't know the protocol. In any case, if Apple set this up, I'm impressed that they are so well prepared for opening in Japan. For the previously mentioned selfish reasons vis-a-vis camcorder compatibility, I hope it bodes well for making significant inroads into the Japanese market. (They're going to have to start getting some Asian pop music into that iTunes store, though.)

<<They're going to have to start getting some Asian pop music into that iTunes store, though.>>

One thing that Apple isn't good at, Patricia, is making international purchases available to worldwide customers. Seems to me they've saddled themselves with a corporate makeup that divides the world into regions that prevents cross-border purchases of any kind. Only U.S. stuff for U.S. customers. Only Japanese stuff for Japanese customers. Too bad.

I'll bet the iTunes store over here will be packed full of Japanese music, and probably will include some Korean, Chinese, and Taiwan music as well. But for an English-reading customer to gain access to that material, and then be able to get their credit card accepted since it's overseas (or even be able to fill out the initial credit card info is a hassle since it's all in Japanese and the information order is different than in the U.S.) is all pretty unlikely.

Apple over here should wake up. I bet 20% of the people I saw in the Apple Store were foreigners.

In a sense, it is. It's basically a foreigner in Japan, esp. Americans.

Oooooh...let's not get into that subject. You'd be astounded.

No problem. I was surfing Apple's site and ran across it in their coverage of the opening of the store, and remembered this thread - I should have mentioned the source in my original post.

Apple's coverage starts here.

John,
2 of my friends are having (had?) opening lectures there. One on music, 'Logic+VJ' and one on computer graphics. I also have a friend that works there as a attendant. I haven't been there I figured there will be no surprises.
Will take a peak once things settle down I guess.
Takeshi

Takeshi,

Sounds like you'll be well taken care of when you go there...with so many friends on staff.

The lecture hall is really nice.