Google has opened its first ever physical retail store located on the first floor of its New York City headquarters. The store, in the city’s popular meatpacking district, also happens to be about a block away from a real Apple Retail Store.
Daniel Howley for Yahoo Finance:
Naturally, the two being so close invites some comparisons, and there’s no getting around it: Google — like Microsoft, which opened its own retail stores in 2009 — took more than a bit of inspiration from Apple’s retail aesthetic. But it’s not an exact copy of the Apple Store.
MacDailyNews Take: All Microsoft retail stores shut down last year.
Compared to the three-story Apple Store down the block, the Google Store is modest. It’s a single floor with a straightforward layout. The store has wooden display tables that show off the company’s Pixel phones, Pixel Buds, and Fitbits.
Naturally, there’s a help desk where you can bring in your Chromebook or Pixel for repairs, and a waiting area for you to relax while everything gets put back together.
MacDailyNews Take: Google’s Dunce Bar will be a busy place. Have fun “relaxing,” settlers.
On the other hand, Apple’s retail stores are an integral part of its business — letting customers check out and buy products without having to wait days for delivery orders. It doesn’t hurt that Apple’s hardware, the iPhone in particular, is some of the most coveted in the world. And as an aspirational brand, its stores are an extension of the kind of luxurious image Apple cultivates.
Google is known more for its software than its hardware. What’s more, it’s not an aspirational brand, but more of a utilitarian offering. Its products also don’t carry the same kind of panache as Apple’s.
MacDailyNews Take: A fake, wannabe, knockoff Apple Store for cheapskates and/or ignoramuses who settle for fake, wannabe, knockoff iPhones.
Derivative, user-tracking, privacy-trampling Google simply has no shame.
