Okay so I admit it. I’m quickly becoming Apples biggest fan. As I’ve said before on this blog I’m first in the line when they finally upgrade their iMac line. Actually along that line I can’t believe the weekend I finally decide that I’m going to jump from the good ship PC, the Internet is full of rumours that the iMac line is in for an upgrade - so hold off. Well guys I’m still holding. Any chance of an upgrade anytime soon.
With my upcoming purchase I’ve of course had to start thinking about how this change will affect other products I own. (I can already hear my Zune groaning as I write this blog post) With this in mind I was excited to see that Cambridge, UK  (where I live) was getting its own Apple store.  I headed down on Thursday (grand opening) and spent an hour or so in the store. It was actually a bit crazy with people so there wasn’t much of a chance to have a proper play with stuff.

Yesterday however I headed back down, and although it was still very busy (in fact without a doubt the busiest store in the shopping mall) there was much more chance to have a play with the products. And this gets me to the point of this post. Apple stores rock!

One of the things that annoy me with shopping for technology is quite often either the store clerks are either clueless about the product, or they don’t let you have a proper play. The Apple store is like a breath of fresh air. Every single system in the store is connected to the Internet and is loaded with every piece of mainstream Mac software available. All of the accounts are setup with full privileges so you can go ahead and download something from the net and install it, as I did with some additional widgets. On the iPhone front they allowed me to switch away from wireless and onto the edge (read slow) network. They also let me make phone calls, which I was just so surprised about. This is fantastic and more shops should allow this. At the end of the day if I’m going to spend some money on something I’d like to test its capabilities.

Of course I’m going to reserve my 100% Mac FanBoy status until they finally upgrade the iMacs and I can start to fill my house with little white boxes of goodness.

Posted on March 30th, 2008 by nigel