ENTERING THE NEW Apple Store in San Francisco’s Union Square, I felt as if I’d stumbled upon some distant outpost of the late Roman Empire, a crumbling fort in the Welsh countryside that is a reminder of glories past, but also of the passing of all glories. For the glory of Apple is inevitably passing, the company having posted its first quarter of revenue decline since 2003, back when iPods were the size of baseball mitts. In the past year, Apple’s invasion of China has been slow, and like Alexander the Great, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook has found India difficult to conquer. As went Rome and Constantinople, so must go Cupertino.
The new store is Apple’s “first global flagship,” I was told by employees on each of my visits. What this means was never explained, probably because it has no meaning, the kind of corporate jargon that was once beneath Silicon Valley’s merriest band of computer geeks. Nevertheless, this opening marks an important occasion for Silicon Valley and all those who worship its products. Apple gadgets are never just phones or just watches, and its stores are never just stores, which is likely why your iOS device autocorrects Apple store to Apple Store. Shopping there suggests a kind of cosmopolitan sophistication. It is a place where you can consume without feeling like a consumer.
Designed by the firm of famed British architect Sir Norman Foster, with Apple retail chief Angela Ahrendts, the Union Square store replaces an Apple outlet nearby on Stockton Street that opened in 2004. The message of the new store, in the heart of San Francisco’s high end shopping district, serves as a warning for all those who are already writing their elegies for the House that Steve Built: Everything under control, nothing to worry about, we aren’t anything like those losers at Yahoo. The sleek surfaces, the cheerful employees in green T-shirts, the rows of iPhones and Apple Watches—all work collectively to reassure us that the ingredients of greatness may need to be updated, à la Coke Zero, but they will never be bastardized, à la Coke BlaK.