Montreal Apple Store in Laval
The new Apple Store in Carrefour Laval opened this morning at 9 A.M. There already was a big line up of people as we arrived there at 8:30 A.M. We were among the first 1000 people so we received a free t-shirt. There were many employees in the store, about half as much as customers. These photos, taken with my Nokia 6682, show the crowded store and the line up which was about 200-300 meters long.
There were many people taking photos, including myself, and taking videos of the line up. Surprising, in the store which looks better than the line up, I didn’t see anybody take any pictures. Although, many people used iSight on the MacBook, MacBook Pro and iMac.
I don’t think anybody bought anything. On this opening day, it looks more like a museum than a store.
The photos have notes.
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This is the first French language Apple Store in the world. They had to do a lot of translation (or didn’t they, and is everything in French?)
I’ll go check it out when it’s less crowded and I actually need something. Or when I pass by Laval.
Actually I’m in the market for a Mac Book Pro but I would have loved to see if the 17 inch model is really too big for me.
Unfortunately I’m wasting my second weekend in a row working on that damm grant application. Oh well! They’re the ones paying for the new laptop.
Any theory as to why this store opened in -Laval- of all places? Is this some type of pilot/trial?
· MARE: Ads were in French like the ones for the iPod on the glass on the right of the entrance.
Proper names like the Genius Bar and The Studio remain unchanged. I guess that’s like Apple; nobody says Pomme when they speak in French about Apple. All the price tags are in French. Obviously, employees also speak French.
· ANDRE: If you plan to be on the move a lot with your laptop, I really don’t recommend a 17″. Whatever the weight is, it’s heavy and cubersome. My 13.3″ is small and very easy to hold and manipulate. If you really need a bigger monitor. Go for the 15.4″ max or you could get a small laptop and plug in another monitor. I had a 15.4″ from Compaq and it was a pain.
· CRSH: I have no idea, but when we were there, we tried to imagine what opening day would look like if the store was in downtown Montreal.
I personally don’t see what the big deal is about an Apple store, New Logic (that went out of business) opened next to FutureShop downtown and nobody bought anything from there either. They sold Apple products as well, laptops, G5, iPods, iMac, the lot of it. If not a lot of people were purchasing that day in Laval then there’s bound to be a problem in the future…
For the record, Laval has nearly everything there and brand new, soon they’ll have spiffy new metros too, I say Laval is the next “It” place for businesses.
Hi,
I was at that store as well, around 8h45. In fact, you may be in some of the pictures I also took. To answer some comments, I think that the presence of Ubisoft in the Montreal area may account for the large number of Apple users around here; also, most Montreal area elementary schools, up until recently, at least, have had iMacs in their school computer labs.
I would like to know how you did the insertion of labeled frames in your pictures. I have the usual apps, so it would be appreciated if you could point me in the right direction (I could use the technique on some of my websites)
Thanks.
· DAHLIA: New Logic and Apple Store are completely different. New Logic looked like the bedroom of some student, basically a place where nobody can find anything except the person that lives there. Apple Store is the opposite, it’s way more organized and has employees that can actually help people.
When I said not many people bought anything that day, I believe that to be true for many stores on opening days, especially for electronics.
· BOB R: Nice, it would be great if you could send me those photos where I’m in.
In the beginning of the 90s, my elementary school already used Mac in their labs.
The frames on the photos are called notes and they are a feature built-in flickr. If you want to that, a quick search on Google gave me this page.
It so freaks me out how Apple users are incredibly dedicated (or brainwashed?) into getting in line on their day off to see the opening of a store!
Of course, the same thing happened outside Crazy Irvings when Windows 95 came out.. I bet they regretted waiting in line for that buggy piece of software!
I know there weren’t only Apple users. Some didn’t have a Mac and never used one. One of the interesting things was seeing whole families with very young kids in line.
I believe that although Windows 95 doesn’t have as many features, it is way more stable than Windows 98/Me. Even Windows 3.1 was more stable.
Well, Long, this blog entry was mentioned in Wired’s Cult of Mac blog — after I sent an email to Wired’s Pete Mortensen…
You can read his entry here: http://blog.wired.com/cultofmac/index.blog?entry_id=1554965
:D
Thank you very much.