Sir Jony Ive is working on Apple Store redesign

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The New Yorker reveals that the stores are being redesigned as Apple prepares to launch its Apple Watch.

 

Apple’s store on Fifth Avenue, New York
Apple’s store on Fifth Avenue, New York

Apple’s senior vice-president of design Sir Jony Ive is working on a redesign of Apple Stores as the company prepares to launch its new watch to market, according to reports.

In a lengthy profile piece in the New Yorker, Ian Parker writes that Ive is working with Apple’s senior vice-president of retail Angela Ahrends on an “as yet unannounced” redesign of the stores.

Parker suggests that the new designs could be more upmarket and quotes Ive as saying he overheard someone saying “I’m not going to buy a watch if I can’t stand on a carpet”.

Parker adds that the new space could be “perhaps less welcoming, at least in some corners, to tourists and truants”.

He describes seeing a new Apple Watch display cabinet, which can be accessed by staff from below using a descending motorised flap “like the ramp at the rear of a cargo plane”.

Apple unveiled its new Apple Watch – the company’s first foray into wearable technology – in September.

The watch will be available later this year, with prices starting at $349 (£217). It features a “digital crown” touchscreen interface and comes in materials including black stainless steel, silver or grey aluminium and 18-carat gold.

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Apple has moved to register its current store designs as a trademark across the European Union, following a similar registration in the US in 2010. However, retail experts have warned that the trademark could be “too broad to defend.”

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