Hasta La Gadget!

Apr 08

Would You Pay $5 to Enter an Apple Store?

Posted in: Apple, Humor, iPhone, Today's Chili

This article was written on July 23, 2007 by CyberNet.

Five dollar charge As I was skimming through my feeds today, “Apple Store to Begin Charging Entrance Fee” caught my attention. I immediately clicked to read the article because I couldn’t imagine that Apple would be that absurd to start charging a fee to enter their stores. This is what I read:

Cupertino, CA – If you want to see the iPhone at an Apple store, be sure to bring some cash. Large crowds flocking to see the iPhone and next generation iPods have forced Apple to begin charging a $5 entrance fee for Apple stores. Many analysts anticipated the move, and expect a positive response from customers.
“Part of the move was to limit crowds to keep the stores safe, but also we wanted to keep the right kind of people in the stores,” said vice president of retail outlets, Vince Sciopiano. “By ‘right kind of people’ I mean true Apple customers with money, willing to pay just to look at our newest wares.”

Then I stopped and realized I was reading the article at BBspot, “the world’s greatest tech humor site” known for fake news stories and satirizing the tech world.

So while it was definitely a good laugh, it made me wonder… would you pay $5 to enter an Apple Store so that you could purchase or test-out an iPhone or an iPod or an iMac or whatever other Apple gear that you wanted?

Maybe that’ll be the latest trend for some of these stores, cover charges to get in, but the charge would be waived if you make a purchase? In the case of Apple as one Digg commenter pointed out, “$5 dollars gets you in, $2,000 gets you out.”