Iphone X was not the “One more thing ” of the September event, basically everyone in the tech world already knew it’s design and specs before launch thanks to the numerous leaks. Most of the other announcements like the apple watch and the apple TV were also predicted beforehand but, one thing at least I did not predicted was the first 20 minutes of the presentation about the apple stores. And that was the actual “One more thing” of the evening.
A bit of a history lesson first. Steve Jobs established the first two apple store in year 2000 with significant criticism form both inside and outside apple. His vision for the apple store was to sell apple products the way he wanted to buy one. And the apple store was a big hit. It was the fastest retail chain ever to reach one billion dollar in sales and did 16 billion dollars in sales in 2011.
But selling apple products directly may not have been the main goal of Steve Jobs. This is evident from last night’s presentation. No part of the store presentation focused on how the buying experience is better at apple store or how they are improving the customer support. Instead most of the presentation focused on how apple stores will harbor a community of apple loyalists. They even went as far to call these stores ‘town squares’.
Now forget what you just read for a minute and read this. There is a new religion now. It already has 500 temples in 22 countries. All these temples are located at prime locations. 500 million people visits these temples every year. Young children are encouraged to become devotes of the religion by teaching them skills like coding. Local teachers are encourage to learn at these temples and pass on the learning to their students. Local artists are encouraged to play at the temples to attract even more crowd. There are clever displays to show everyone the way of this new religion and how following it will make your life simple.
Apple is the new religion.
Apple stores are not there to sell you an Iphone today. They are there to make sure you buy only Iphones for your life. Here is a HBR article that explains how apple and other companies are working to create religion out of there brands, and apple is certainly winning.
Another funny yet striking way apple is similar to other religion is that it always asks for tax breaks form the countries it invest in.
So What do you think of this new religion? Leave a response below.