“While many of us will be celebrating Valentine’s Day this Saturday, for Apple it represents the end of an era,” Luke Dormehl reports for Cult of Mac. “At 10pm today, Apple will close its existing Oakridge retail store in San Jose, California — with a new, larger one set to open Saturday morning at 10am. In the process, Apple will have marked the end of its mini-store experiment, with the Oakridge venue being the last of its kind.”
“First launched in 2004, Apple’s mini-stores were an effort to quickly roll out new Apple Stores to keep up with demand at a time when the company was unable to find enough of the larger sites it was looking for,” Dormehl reports. “Nine mini-stores were opened in all — ranging in size from 2,000-square-feet down to a tiny 500-square foot.”
Dormehl reports, “The mini-stores were a great success, and Apple briefly considered trying to make them a fixture at airports. However, they quickly became unwieldy as Apple transitioned into the giant that it is today — resulting in too many customers for the diminutive size of each venue.”
Read more and see the photos in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: And say hello to dedicated Apple Watch Stores.
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