Factsheets

Store wars - Apple vs. Telstra, Sydney vs. Melbourne

Jun 26 07:58am
- Big brands are spending millions to impress us when many are shopping online. We compare the two tech temples and decide whether it's worth a visit.

 

One of the nation's largest providers of mobile phones and the new kid on the mobile block are battling it out with high class technology havens for the everyday consumer.

In what is shaping as the next generation of retailing, super stores full of shiny surfaces and glamourised technology aim to turn shopping into a fully immersive brand experience.

A week after Apple’s first and flagship store opened, Telstra has just unveiled their new showcase store in Melbourne.


Compared to Apple's multi-millionaire dollar glass-walled temple in Sydney, Telstra’s I-Life store doesn’t feature iPods but has many competing products lined up to touch and try out.

The Telstra effort is the largest state-of-the-art interactive telecommunications store in Australia, the press releases promising it will to ‘transform the Melbourne CBD landscape and bringing a touch of 'Times Square' meets '5th Avenue' to the corner of Bourke and Swanston Streets.’

Both stores offer free internet connection and so act like a large, free open-plan internet café.

 

The two tech temples compared

 

APPLE – Sydney

TELSTRA - Melbourne

Broken records

 

Largest glass panels ever made (15m x 4m)

 

Largest LCD screen in Australia (22 metre x 2.5 metre)

Training

 

Join One to One for $129/yr to get up to 52 personal training sessions, or take a Pro Lab over 4 weeks for advanced users. Can be scheduled online.

Customers visiting the store can join free daily training and demonstrations in the store's 50 seat auditorium or book one-on-one sessions with media experts at a scheduled time

Layout

Three floors of pristine beech benches and imported stainless steel that have the feeling of a futuristic laboratory. It’s second-largest Apple store in the world after London.

The bottom floor is set out like a home, with products displayed in a 'natural' environment showing how they can be connected wirelessly. The store is seven tennis courts in size.

Internet café

Free

Free

 

Locations 

Telstra - Corner of Bourke and Swanston Streets, Melbourne

Apple - Corner of King and George Streets, Sydney 

More info

Gadget Guy article

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