Apple Store opening: video, photos and timeline

Two people -- and a police car -- wait outside the Apple Store at 8 a.m. on Saturday, July 31, the day after its official opening and two hours before its second day opening.

Now we can finally drop the Apple Store watch.

As reported and expected, the Apple Store at 1607 Walnut Street near Rittenhouse Square opened Friday late afternoon and did so with much fanfare. Rather than recreate the coverage, we figured we’d offer you a spin through the best.

• Apple Store development timeline — Brownstoner
• Inside the Apple Store photos — Brownstoner
• The Apple of many an eye opening — Inquirer (Good perspective on retail effect)
• The Line for the New Apple Store — Daring Fireball
• That New Store Smell — John Gruber’s Flickr
• Philadelphia finally gets an Apple Store — Fortune (complete with a Philly dig or two)

Below, check out some videos of the opening.

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Apple Store still getting primed, to open this evening

At 9:30 this morning windows were being washed at the new Walnut Street Apple Store. Apple’s flagship Philadelphia store will open this evening at 5:00 p.m., according to reports.

Philly’s Apple Store gets a storefront

The Apple Store front. Photo by Brownstoner.

Our good friends over at Brownstoner have provided an update on the status of Philadelphia’s Apple Store. Pictures on the real estate blog show the glass storefront being assembled at 1607 Walnut Street. Philly Chit Chat even has a video of the new storefront being lifted into place.

To refresh your memory, rumor of the Apple Store had been swirling for years until in November when the Metro reported that the store was finally coming to Rittenhouse Square. In December, the company officially put out the call for employees and the building has been under construction ever since, though it was picketed by union protestors.

No word yet on when the store will open.

Disclosure: Apple retailer Springboard Media is a longtime sponsor of Technically Philly.

A new iPhone… but not for Verizon

Update, 12:00 p.m.: Verizon Wireless Public Relations Manager Sheldon Jones contacted Technically Philly to make clear that the carrier has no immediate plans to make available the iPhone on the Verizon Wireless network and that the company talks to many vendors about the possibility of working together. “We have no immediate plans of offering [the iPhone] and we do talk to all of the companies. We’re very confident in the line-up we have, a porfolio which is bigger and better than anyone out there,” he said.

Yesterday in San Jose, California, Apple CEO Steve Jobs was on-hand for what has become a June tradition: the unveiling of the company’s latest iPhone.

The new smartphone has a handful of new bells and whistles: a stainless steel rim, a thinner form factor, a faster processor, better battery life, a video conferencing camera and an impressive new high-resolution display, among other technological advancements.

But one new feature that didn’t crop up was support for Verizon Wireless’s network. Currently, the coveted phone is only available for AT&T Wireless.

It’s no surprise, really. Analysts and fans have been predicting since the iPhone was first launched in 2007 that the phone will someday land on Verizon store shelves, to no avail.

So when Technically Philly spoke to Verizon Wireless regional president Mario Turco a few weeks before yesterday’s announcement, the iPhone issue wasn’t even on the docket. It seemed a tired conversation. Yet, as the call was wrapping up, a Verizon public relations rep reminded us that, yes, it was still very much on the docket for Big Red.

Read the rest at PhillyMag’s Philly Post.

Apple users make up one-fourth of Philadelphia population

Experian Simmons Mosaic profile of users of iPod, iPhone or Mac computers (including home and work)

Updated, Apr. 20, 1:33 p.m.: Due to rounding error that affected the language of the title and lede of the post, we’ve corrected the story to indicate that only one-fourth of Philadelphia’s population owns or uses Apple products, instead of one-third.

Count the computers you see at the coffeehouse to see if it jives, but Philadelphia is one-fourth Apple.

According to research firm Experion Simmons, 27 percent of the Philadelphia market, or 1.6 million people, use Apple products. The figure might seem incredulous if it wasn’t for the large number of white earbuds one can easily spot on the subway.

The firm says that the Philadelphia market is ranked 17th in nation for the number of its Apple users, after analyzing the propensity for a consumer to own an iPod, iPhone or a Mac computer.

In the top market, San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, Experion says that 32 percent of adults own or use at least one Apple product.

Where it gets interesting is in comparing the report’s top markets with locations of Apple Retail Stores, leaving out Apple Certified stores, or any retailers carrying Apple products.

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Apple Store architect profiled, Walnut Street retail space due to open in July

The Walnut Street location today and its proposed look upon opening.

Updated 4/8/10 @ 2:14 p.m.: Brownstoner has an interior shot of the current location.

The “computer illiterate” architect based outside of Scranton that helped envision the Apple retail store aesthetic and who is leading plans for the company’s much-heralded first Center City location was profiled by the Inquirer’s Inga Saffron recently.

While Saffron’s profile focuses much on Peter Bohlin’s noted Fifth Avenue “cube” location in Manhattan, the piece did touch on the 1607-1609 location that she reports is scheduled to open in July:

The Philadelphia store won’t be a signature design like the Cube, but it will incorporate key elements of the BCJ prototype, from the minimal scrim of the glass facade to the strict linear arrangement of the tables and products. A second-floor seminar room should help make it a gathering place.

We reported the store was hiring as far back as December.

Picketers outside proposed Apple Store on Walnut

Picketers outside 1607 Walnut Street. Photo taken by Hughe Dillon.

Laborers’ union members are picketing the Apple Store-to-be at 1607 Walnut Street, according to the above camera photo from Philadelphia’s paparazzi legend Hugh Dillon.

“[The picketers are] against owners of [those] prepping the [building] for the Apple lease,” reports Dillon. “They [are] using non-union workers. They stress it’s not against Apple, as Apple is using union workers.”

In December we reported that this, the first official Apple store to be located in the city, was hiring.

Friday Q&A: Keith McGinnis on Philadelphia Weekly’s free Happy Hour Guide app

No one is suggesting that iPhone applications are going to save legacy media. But the conversation so often turns to profitability on mobile platforms, that it may be a surprise there are so  few truly local products from Philadelphia media.

NBC10 and 6ABC have free apps developed with the help of their national parents. Shopiks offers Philly coupons, and there’s the popular Philadelphia Concert Hub.

A screenshot of the app's interface. Click to enlarge.

“The rest are tour guides, canned content, RSS readers of Philly feeds or some sort of national content that is supposed to relate to our area,” says Keith McGinnis, who recently left a role heading up IT for Review Publishing, whose flagship brand is Philadelphia Weekly.

In December, PW likely made the region’s strongest big media play into mobile by launching a McGinnis-led Philly Happy Hour Guide application for the iPhone and iPod touch. The application offers users the chance to search and find the best happy hour deals at specific locations, specific bars, specific neighborhoods or wherever is nearest. There are options for calling a cab, getting directions and tracking just what’s your favorite.

Last month, the app became free to use, after a paid trial version, and so now, McGinnis says, PW has an excellent opportunity to test the waters of localized mobile profitability, ahead of anyone else in Philadelphia (No particular provision is being made for the few hundred who paid $1 for the app, McGinnis says, “I figure you saved $1 on your first drink special.”)

McGinnis is now joining the staff of Northern Liberties Web development firm o3world, but the Happy Hour Guide is still close enough to his heart that he took the time to chat with Technically Philly about how the app plans on making money, how it got made and what it means for PW’s always active competition with crosstown rival CityPaper.

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Friday Tech Links: Mount Airy teen hacker in WSJ, Digital Philadelphia summit video and More

Ari Weinstein, 15, in the computer lab of Germantown Friends School, where he just finished 9th grade. Yukari Kane/The Wall Street Journal

In which we link out to the tech news from Philly and elsewhere (when it matters) that slips through the cracks and make it way fun. See others here.

Ari Weinstein is the youngest Mount Airy-based hacker we’ve featured on Technically Philly in our long and illustrious history.

Weinstein, 15, is apparently “getting job offers from Israel and all over the place,” and will follow in my footsteps and appear on Fox 29 Monday morning (See clip here), after his place in a Wall Street Journal cover story that ran this week, as reported dutifully by our boy Joe DiStefano.

Weinstein is a contributor to iJailBreak.com, a blog devoted to help users install unapproved software onto Apple’ iPhone and iPod touch products.

Dude is keeping it straight tech raw in northwest Philly, even while he’s in summer camp on the Left Coast. Dude’s father Ken is a developing playing a large role in something of a retail resurgence in Mount Airy, DiStefano reports, including his ownership of the Trolley Car Diner.

H/T Joey D

After the jump, more Ben Franklin Technology Partners dispute, a Digital Philadelphia op-ed and six other tech stories you should read, including our best read article of the week.

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Rumored Philadelphia Apple Store location suffers damage

Photo courtesy of a Philebrity.com reader

While Philly’s Apple community is served well by local retailers Springboard Media and Bundy, we often wonder what it takes to get some love from Steve Jobs and company.

After all, Philadelphia is the largest media market without an Apple Store, unless, of course you count the city’s suburban Apple outlets.

Well, the architecture gods may have exacted revenge on the computer company, Philebrity.com reports.

The rumored site of Apple’s Philadelphia location has suffered some sort of structural damage. Overnight, a piece of marble installation crumbled off the building and into the street, though no one was hurt, according to Philly.com.

Last year, AppleInsider speculated that Apple was eying the space at 1619 Walnut Street, formally the home of the Brasserie Perrier restaurant. PhiladelphiaWillDo’s DMac disputed the claim.

All has been quiet on the Philly Apple Store front, though the company continues to expand its number of retail locations nationwide. The company recently announced that it will be opening up a fourth store in the second best city on the East coast, ahem, New York.

According to public records, the space at 1619 Walnut is owned by “Walnut Street Retail Investments.”

Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, the firm responsible for designing some of the company’s New York locations, declined to comment about the possibility of a Philadelphia location when Technically Philly contacted their Philadelphia office late last week.

As part of the firm’s agreement with Apple,�it is prohibited from discussing any details of future locations and would not even confirm that Apple was considering Philadelphia.