Steve Jobs Sighting "Yes, I'm Back."

Apple CEO Steve Jobs presided over a pre-opening event for the first new Apple mini store in Palo Alto, CA, (Stanford Shopping Center) according to this Reuters article. During Wednesday's Q4 financial conference call, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer mentioned that 6 of the new boutique-style retail Apple Stores will open by tomorrow. The other five minis are Oakridge (San Jose, CA), Rockaway (Rockaway, NJ), Santa Rosa Plaza (Santa Rosa, CA), Southcenter (Tukwila, WA) and Bridgewater (Bridgewater, NJ).

The design of Apple's new "mini" retail store features a stunning all-new design with stainless steel walls and seamless white floors and ceilings (see photo at right courtesy of Apple Computer, Inc.). The mini store is half the size of Apple’s smallest store to date, which will allow it to be placed in a variety of new locations to introduce Apple’s innovative products to even more customers. The new Apple mini stores feature:

• Apple’s full line of portables plus the new iMac G5 desktop computers;
  
• Apple’s full line of iPods;
  
• An assortment of the best third party products to help customers get more out of their iPod or Mac;
  
• The Genius Bar, where anyone can get their questions answered by an Apple “Genius;” and
  
• On-site repair on all Apple products, including next day turnaround for customers with a ProCare service card.

[Dana Baggett]