“Whatever it is (Radio Shack for rich people? The Sharp-est Image?), the Apple Store isn’t what it used to be, even a year or so ago. The initial thrills, the feelings of i-comfort and i-belonging, still await you behind its translucent facade, especially now, in the gizmodic spree of the Christmas season. But somewhere along the way, the zendo quality of the Apple Store changed,” Hank Stuever writes for The Washington Post.
“The demi-privacy of it, the clubby feeling — I know that you know that I know that we know and love Macs like nobody else does — is fading away. Too much commotion. The ethereal, tranquil, spa vibe (the bath of white light, the polished concrete floors, the glint in the happy eyes of the geniuses at the Genius Bar) has been pierced by the sheer popularity of the place. The TV commercials worked. Mac Guy, even with his non-arrogant arrogance, is your real friend, and then he gathered too many friends, and suddenly he doesn’t have time for them all,” Stuever writes.
Stuever writes, “Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO and bodhisattva, got what he wanted: the people. (A hundred million customers were lured to its stores in fiscal 2006-07, according to Apple, adding up to more than $4 billion in revenue.)”
Stuever writes, “Apple shoppers are more than people, more than customers — they are seekers. Those Apple marketing guys said all along they were building not just stores but serene communities of true believers and new converts. And so they did, and here we are, just 6 1/2 years later.”
Stuever continues, on and on and on, in his overwritten, messy complaint-fest here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “RadDoc,” “citymark,” and “Whit” for the heads up.]
Because he writes like a freshman Lit student (most likely, California State University-Chico) without an editor, it’s tough to tell just what the heck the italics-lovin’ Stuever’s point is, besides making up new compound words, coming across as a royal A-hole, recounting a handful of anecdotes that are supposed to put Apple in a bad light, and bemoaning the fact that Apple Stores are welcoming in new Apple product users with open arms. Apple should bar non-Mac or new-to-Mac users at the doors to placate Hank Stuever-types, we suppose.
We know things are bad in the newspaper business, but sheesh! We’re embarrassed for The Washington Post.