Angela Ahrendts, Apple’s high priestess for all things retail, wants to harness her inventory of company stores around the world to be much more than simply places to buy iPhones and iPads.
Talking to a LinkedIn blog this week to share her vision, Apple’s senior vice president for retail described about how so-called “influencers” will be able to share their art and ideas in a communal setting within Apple stores. These “thinkers, leaders, and culture-makers” who “feed” our curiosity and “reinforce” our ideas will turn Apple stores into repositories of creative sparks and incubators of world-changing ideas, if, that is, things go according to Ahrendts’ plan.
“An influencer to me is someone who shares their journey—the ups and downs—and their approach to their craft or the spark that ignites a new interest allowing people to do more and go further,” she writes. “At their core, an influencer creates an empowering human connection. This is the essence of our new in-store experience, ‘Today at Apple,’ bringing a community of people together to influence one another, to learn, share, and experience their Apple passions like music, photography, videography, art and coding. Free and open to everyone, everyday—kids, parents, educators, entrepreneurs, and more.”
Ahrendts goes on to say what every fanboy and girl out there already knows as Steve Jobs’ gospel: “At Apple, we believe that people with passion can change the world. In an era of social everything, we want to spark possibility and opportunity in the creative arts, in real life, person to person. Across our almost 500 stores through our 60,000 incredible employees impacting their local communities.” The goal, says Ahrendts, is to turn every Apple Store into a town square where people with similar interests can gather and share ideas and experiences.
The message then sends readers to the Today at Apple site where you can plug in your local store and pull up a list of activities at each venue.
Besides offering things like workshops like editing classes for the Mac and adding voice-over to your iPhone video, the initiative offers new sessions to learn and share ideas about using iPads for hearing loss and finding creative ways to store those billions of old photos you’ve got on your iPhone 7. The stores will also offer special classes for kids and for businesses. Every single store will offer a Kid’s Hour every Saturday morning. At the Apple Store in Walnut Creek this afternoon, for example, you can join others on a “Photo Walk: Framing Architecture and Details.”
In fact, this weekend every Apple Store on the planet will be offering photo walks, too. And stores will also offer Studio Hours, which are open work sessions where users can come in and get help from trained staff and other Apple customers with their personal projects.
“Discover a new angle on photographing buildings, monuments, architectural details, and structures,” says the pitch. “Bring your iPhone or iPad and we’ll share techniques for composing your shot, and show you how to consider light and shadow to emphasize details and lines. Wear comfortable shoes and bring only what you need—including a fully charged device.”
The program is not completely new by any means – for years, Apple has offered classes and speakers inside many of its stores, with some of the larger locations equipped with spacious classrooms. But with Today at Apple, the Cupertino tech giant is jumping even higher onto a social-networking bandwagon that everyone from Google (“Google Groups allows you to create and participate in online forums and email-based groups with a rich experience for community conversations.”) to Facebook (“Whether it’s a road trip, a bachelor party, or your concert bucket list, groups make it easy to coordinate with friends near and far. Share documents, project updates, poll your team for feedback. A group lets you communicate in one searchable space.”)
Even Airbnb has joined the fray with its “Experiences” which allow guests to join others and do communal activities in different cities around the world.
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Cupertino, California — Apple today announced plans to launch dozens of new educational sessions next month in all 495 Apple stores ranging in topics from photo and video to music, coding, art and design and more. The hands-on sessions, collectively called “Today at Apple,” will be led by highly-trained team members, and in select cities world-class artists, photographers and musicians, teaching sessions from basics and how-to lessons to professional-level programs.
“At the heart of every Apple Store is the desire to educate and inspire the communities we serve,” said Angela Ahrendts, Apple’s senior vice president, Retail. “‘Today at Apple’ is one of the ways we’re evolving our experience to better serve local customers and entrepreneurs. We’re creating a modern-day town square, where everyone is welcome in a space where the best of Apple comes together to connect with one another, discover a new passion, or take their skill to the next level. We think it will be a fun and enlightening experience for everyone who joins.”
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