The First Apple Store Grand Opening with Photos

We arrived at the McLean, VA, Apple Store a half hour before the 10am opening and there were already a little over 200 people in line.

The first person in line was Chris Barylick, a 17-year Mac user (see photo album). Chris works with Arlington County Public Schools and is a contributing editor to MacNN. He first got there at 4am. The cleaning crew had no problem with him hanging out in front of the Apple Store but mall security escorted him out as a "fire risk". I guess they thought he was so eager that he might spontaneously ignite. He returned before 8am to reclaim his first-in-line spot. Chris was going to buy a copy of Mac OS X.

A detail of 6 Fairfax County police officers was on scene to keep things orderly. But as a Mac user might expect, things proceeded very orderly with no intervention from the police needed at all. I spoke to the corporal heading the detail, not a Mac user himself, but he mentioned that he saw lots of iBooks being moved into the stock room and was real impressed with them and the huge crowd that had shown up. Members of mall security, also hanging out, said they had never seen anything like this in the history of Tyson Corner Center mall.

By the time the store opened at 10am, the line had grown to about 500. Lynn Fox (no relation to our EIC--darn!), Apple Sr. Corporate PR Manager for Corporate Communications, introduced us to Kathie Calcidise, Apple VP for New Business, and Ilene Magee, the Store Manager.

Kathie Calcidise (see photo album) was working the line with an iBook, showing off its features and selling them to those who came to buy. Those who did buy from the line received an instant pass to get inside the store to claim and purchase an iBook--great idea. According to Kathie, the store was well stocked with new iBooks. When we got inside about 11:25a all the iBooks with combo drives were gone--they only had a few of that model.

She said that the store sales team had been put together with a concerted recruiting effort. We recognized several of the sales associates as regulars at our local MUG, Washington Apple Pi. They had been recruited at the February WAP meeting. Kathie added that there are 4 "Geniuses" per store to cover the long hours that the stores will be open. The Geniuses had all been recruited for their Mac knowledge by a team from AppleCare. They each underwent a 2-week intensive training course given by AppleCare. We didn't get a chance to test their knowledge since this location in the store was too popular and very crowded.

Apple will open 25 stores by the end of the year, hopefully by the holiday season according to Kathie. Apple has not announced which stores will open next after the McLean and Glendale, CA, stores today so she couldn't say which locations will be next. It is difficult to even estimate because Apple has specifically chosen certain locations to maximize the Stores exposure and those locations don't come available necessarily on selection. Apple has taken real care to pick good locations. For example, the McLean Apple Store location in the mall is ideal as it lies on the path between Bloomingdales and Nordstroms and next to the huge LL Bean store. There were a zillion passersby while we waited in line, many stopping to ask what was going on.

Ilene Magee, the Store Manager, (see photo album) was really busy making sure that things were working smoothly. They were. Ilene was recruited from The Gap where she was the Mid-Atlantic District Manager. This shows how serious Apple is about recruiting top talent to make sure the stores work out.

We got inside at 11:25am, a nearly two-hour wait. The line moved slowly because only a certain number of people were allowed in and they stayed and stayed and.... Well, the store is really nice. It smelled of fresh wood and is very cleanly decked out in black and white (see photo album). It is organized according to use, not hardware, so there is a Photo (digital image) section, Movie section, Music section, AirPort wireless networking section, etc. This layout emphasizes function over a specific computer, a great idea. The center sections have MP3 players, PDAs and digital cameras (still and movie) on top and loads of software below. There is also a small area for peripherals and cables, etc. that is not particularly well stocked at this time. We hope that the Apple Store will eventually carry kits that Apple sells from the on line store like the Radeon and soon to be available GeForce3 graphics cards.

We finally got our hands on a new iBook. What a fabulous laptop. It is gorgeous, light and small enough to replace our 2400c for heavy airline travel. The screen is bright and sharp. Even tired old eyes can see the 1024x768 resolution very well. We are definitely going to get one soon, i.e. when we decide which model to get, DVD or combo.

We were good citizens and didn't hog time in the store. We'll be back for a closer look when and if it is ever less crowded. We got our commemorative t-shirts on exit. Our legal counsel is showing it off in the photo album.

The end of the line at 11:45am, now longer than when the store opened, was out the door down by Bloomingdales and nearly into the parking lot. At the bitter end was Peter Berglund, a scientist at the National Institutes of Heath. Peter conducts medical research. He said he was going to wait as long as it took to get in. We hope he got a t-shirt but our guess is that over a thousand people were already ahead of him.

Here is our photo album of 21 pictures of the event.

McLean, VA, Update: A reader sent this URL with additional photos of the commemorative tee.

Glendale, CA, Update: Reader Lon Hutchison sent URLs to photos and a quicktime movie taken at the Glendale, CA, Grand Opening:

Photos & QT Movie 1

Photos 2 by Drew Padgett

Thanks, Lon.