Inside Steve's Brain - Leander Kahney [76]
Jobs and Johnson also decided customers should be encouraged to test-drive all the products. At the time, most computer stores had working models on display, but customers couldn’t load up software or connect to the Net or download pictures from their digital camera. At the Apple stores, customers would be free to test all aspects of a machine before they bought it.
At first, Jobs pondered the idea of opening a few stores and seeing what happened. But on Mickey Drexler’s advice, Jobs had a secret mockup store built in a warehouse close to Apple’s Cupertino HQ. The store would be designed the same way as Apple’s products: they would build a prototype that could be refined and improved until it was perfected.
Johnson assembled a team of about twenty retail experts and store designers, and began to experiment with different store layouts. To make it friendly and approachable, the team decided to use natural materials: wood, stone, glass, and stainless steel. The palette was neutral and the stores would have very good lighting to make the products glow. Typically, there was an uncompromising attention to detail. In the early days, Jobs met with the design team for half a day each week. During one meeting, the group exhaustively evaluated three types of lighting just to make sure multicolored iMacs would shine as they do in glossy print ads, according to Business 2.0 magazine. “Every little element in the store is designed to these very details,” Johnson said.36
In October 2000, after several months of work, the prototype store was nearly ready when Johnson had a revelation. He realized that the store didn’t reflect Apple’s digital hub philosophy, which put the computer at the heart of the digital lifestyle. The prototype store was laid out with computers in one corner and cameras in another, just like at Best Buy. Johnson realized that the store should group the computers with the cameras to show customers how they could use the Mac to actually do things, like assemble a book of digital photographs or burn a home movie to DVD.
“Steve, I think it’s wrong,” Johnson told Jobs. “I think we’re making a mistake. This is about digital future, not just about products.”37 Johnson realized that it would be more effective to show customers functioning digital hubs, with cameras, camcorders, and MP3 players attached to computers. The working machines would be arranged in “solution zones,” showing how the Mac could be used for digital photography, video editing, and making music—activities prospective customers would actually want to do.
At first, Jobs was far from happy: “Do you know what you’re saying? Do you know we have to start over?” he yelled, angrily storming off to his office. But Jobs soon had a change of heart. Within the hour, he returned to Johnson’s office in a brighter mood. He told Johnson that almost all of Apple’s best products had been shelved and started over, like the iMac. It was part of the process. In a later interview with Fortune, Jobs said his initial reaction was “Oh, God, we’re screwed!” but that Johnson was right. “It cost us, I don’t know, six, nine months. But it was the right decision by a million miles,” he said .38
After the redesign, the prototype store was divided into four sections, each devoted to Johnson’s “solution zones.” One quarter at the front of the store is devoted to products, another quarter to music and photos, the third quarter to the Genius Bar and movies, and the fourth quarter to accessories and other products at the back of the store. The idea is to create a place where customers could find entire “solutions” to lifestyle problems they wanted solved—like taking and sharing digital pictures or editing and making