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Apple's new glass-walled Chicago flagship store downplays the selling

The glass-sided store sits on the shore of the Chicago River in the city's downtown.

It remains to be seen how many iPhones, iPads and Macs, Apple ends up selling at its stunning new Michigan Avenue flagship store along the Chicago riverfront.  Tim Cook insists that’s almost beside the point.

Apple’s CEO told Chicago TV reporter Charlie Wojciechowski that while “almost all stores are for selling, it’s actually a small part of what we do in our store.”

Instead, Cook says, “Our stores are about service, supporting customers, being a place where people can discover and explore our products and education…A place where people can connect.”

It’s also quite an architectural achievement. The building has a 111-by-98 foot carbon-fiber roof that Apple said was designed to be as thin as possible. The entire structure, Apple says, is supported by four interior pillars that allow the 32-foot glass facades to remain unobscured.

The store is the newest crown jewel in Apple’s attempts to make over its retail stores, part of a collaboration effort between Apple design chief Jony Ive and Apple's senior vice president of retail Angela Ahrendts. Chicago was the site of Apple's first flagship store in 2003.

While visiting the Windy City, Cook also weighed in on a possible successor during an interview with BuzzFeed News. "I see my role as CEO to prepare as many people as I can to be CEO, and that's what I'm doing. And then the board makes a decision at that point in time."

As part of its educational efforts, Apple offers “Today at Apple” daily sessions in Chicago and for that matter at all its retail stores globally, covering photography, music creation, art and design, coding and entrepreneurship.

Email: ebaig@usatoday.com; Follow USA TODAY Personal Tech Columnist @edbaig on Twitter

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