
Apple Store Redesign - sinak
http://store.apple.com/us?
======
DigitalSea
I am not a designer by any means, but does anyone else think the images feel a
little too big and overpowering to the point the name of the product and price
gets lost? The colour of the price for me is hard to see unless you really
look as well. It definitely marks an improvement over what their site looked
like a few years ago, but I can't help but feel it is not very well thought
out.

The limited colour palette of grey and white also means it is sometimes hard
for my eyes to differ from the contrast which confuses me (the Beats by Dre
section is a good example). Once again, I am not a designer, but I do not find
this store redesign very appealing at all, it is confusing on the eye. I hate
to be harsh, but feels like I am looking at a catalogue that came in the
letterbox with large shouty product images on weird angles.

As for people making remarks about Apple selling third party products on their
site, they have done this for as long as I can remember. Laptop cases, third
party peripherals (external hard drives), headphones and more. You also have
to remember that Apple bought Beats not long ago, so the Beats headphones are
actually their own products even if Beats is being operated separately for the
moment inside of Apple and probably will continue to do so.

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ZoFreX
This is what the Apple Store page looked like in 2011 shortly before Steve
Jobs died:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20111001165346/http://store.appl...](https://web.archive.org/web/20111001165346/http://store.apple.com/us)

I am very confused as to why people are saying he his rolling in his grave
over third party accessories being sold through the Apple website - it has
been this way for as long as I can remember.

~~~
mhurron
Everything recently that Apple does that people don't agree with has Jobs
'rolling in his grave.'

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vonklaus
Sort of a weird rebrand. I also, had jank scrolling. The massive screen real-
estate donated to a double menu bar and this huge "busy" picture, just
instantly puts me on edge. Also, when you go to a selection ('iphone', 'ipad')
you get all products in the category not all products so you have to go back,
you can't quickly browse around the site. I think it is super ugly, a total
change in brand focused on parents and being trendy (small children, road-trip
selfies pictures) and less on pure powerful technology that is exceedingly
simple.

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desdiv
Kinda funny how the top story was "Stop Changing UIs for No Good Reason"
earlier this morning, and then this comes up.

~~~
chuckcode
Perfect day for it really with them breaking a few of the rules laid out in
another top story "7 rules for creating gorgeous ui" [1]. Having non white
text over a high contrast photo with skinny text certainly is bold according
to the pervious article.

[1] [https://medium.com/@erikdkennedy/7-rules-for-creating-
gorgeo...](https://medium.com/@erikdkennedy/7-rules-for-creating-gorgeous-ui-
part-2-430de537ba96)

~~~
kremlin
'text over a high contrast photo' \- rule applies when the text is over a
high-contrast PART of the photo. The rule is there for legibility - black text
over a flat, white (or just off white) part of a photo that also, in a
separate part, has some high-contrast elements, is perfectly fine for
legibility.

The only unreadable type on that page is actually the white type over the high
contrast photo at the very top of the page. "From one gift come many" \- on my
MBP, that looks really poor. My eyes are nearly in pain trying to read that.

All in all, I do think it's a bad job of a redesign. Very trendy, but quite
obnoxious navigationally. Bad UX. I'm fine with big images and minimal text,
but I think it needs to be shrunk quite a lot -- the entire Beats by Dre
section should fit, top to bottom, on my 1440x900px screen. As it is, it's a
full 2.5x screen heights (estimated).

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chestnut-tree
A while back (Jan 2014), a designer called Sebastiano Guerriero created an
unsolicited redesign of the Apple store. The square grid of large images in
the new Apple store redesign reminded me of his concept. I wonder if Apple
looked at the design (it went viral) and took some inspiration. Regardless, I
thought the unsolicited design was rather nice.

[https://www.behance.net/gallery/Apple-Store-
Redesign/1411391...](https://www.behance.net/gallery/Apple-Store-
Redesign/14113919)

[http://ambercreative.co/experiments/apple-
store/](http://ambercreative.co/experiments/apple-store/)

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snickmy
Am I the only not feeling 100% comfortable with the new design?

It is more graphically appealing but the user experience is not what I'm
expecting on an online store.

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greglindahl
In the past Apple's store website has never worked in Firefox; a typical
problem is buttons that don't do anything when pressed (like "add to cart" or
"checkout".) With this new site, it almost works with Firefox: I got stuck in
an endless loop for engraving on an iPad, but after a chat an Apple tech put
the iPad into my cart, and I was able to complete the purchase. Almost!

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fit2rule
This is clearly aimed at parents, who want to give gifts to their kids - a
segment Apple are targetting anew in the run-up to Christmas. I guess what I'm
seeing is a more "Home Shopping Network" thing going on, and it perturbs me ..
but as a parent, I can see their positioning having effect.

I guess Apples' "thing" this Christmas is "Family-Friendly, Safe"..

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GrinningFool
Is apple only now falling in with the useless-giant-image-and-lots-of-
scrolling trend, or is this just 'refined'?

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ryandvm
At least they didn't slap a giant, full-screen video loop on the background.
That fad can't die soon enough.

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oliv__
It's interesting to see the new direction they seem to be taking.

All of those fullscreen pictures of people don't feel very "Apple-y", they
look more like Tommy Hilfiger ads to me. And the contrast is especially
noticeable when you scroll down to the all white, all products sections right
beneath them.

~~~
GrinningFool
This is apparently what the UX profession as a whole has decided is the best,
most pretty-looking thing. Interestingly I've not seen studies that show
people like it when they go to a web site with intent to find things, but
that's secondary to looking pretty.

The pictures don't have to be meaningful or relevant - they just have to be
big, and avoid distracting you with silly text that might convey relevant
information. To get to anything like that, it's 'good design' to force the
user to scroll first. hadn't you heard?

</rant> Sorry. This large picture + no meaningful up-front content + much
scrolling trend is so irritating.

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und3rw4t3rp00ps
I think the inclusion/highlighting of third party brands is Apple sticking
it's toe into broad, Amazon-rivaling e-commerce.

Apple is looking to become a/the source for all things worthy of association.
Side note - they're already great at brick and mortar shelf bullying (i.e. Fit
Bit & Bose).

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chrisduesing
There are a lot of non-Apple products. I recall seeing things like printers
buried in the old design, but I assume drones are new? I am curious how people
will feel about the perceived dilution of the brand vs. knowing their audience
and curating interesting ancillary product offerings?

~~~
drivingmenuts
I, for one, am outraged. Outraged, I tell you! /sarcasm

Eh, it's the Xmas shopping season. It's to be expected and at least it's not
the usual trainwreck of design that pops up on other sites. There's a room in
Hell for designers that give people eye-plosions.

------
ed
The cheapest pair of Beats is $99. Are they moving upmarket or have they
always been so expensive?

Compare with Skullcandy earbuds, which seem to be of similar quality, starting
at about $20.

Interesting strategy if that's the case. Definitely fits with the Apple image.

~~~
FD3SA
Think of Beats headphones like a very expensive fashion accessory. Their
performance as headphones pales in comparison to the price. Professional audio
engineers use less expensive (and FAR superior) headphones.

Price doesn't always translate to quality. In many cases, it's pure status
signalling. Many luxury fashion brands operate in this manner.

------
benihana
6th month old Macbook Pro, I'm getting jank on this page in both Chrome and
Safari. This is legitimately disappointing.

~~~
knd775
What do you mean? The page doesn't work?

~~~
Sidnicious
"jank" is a euphemism for "choppy scrolling".

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mrjj
Indescribable disgusting, like yet another n00b startup landing. I want to
view key positions, click and buy.

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primitivesuave
The difference between Apple now and Apple a couple years ago is that they
would never dilute the main Apple product page with external brands. While I
think it's great that you can buy Apple-compatible drones, I hardly think
"people who impulse buy $500 drones or $300 headphones" is a large enough
market to warrant ~30% of the page.

~~~
ceejayoz
> The difference between Apple now and Apple a couple years ago is that they
> would never dilute the main Apple product page with external brands.

Demonstrably false. About a third of
[https://web.archive.org/web/20111001165346/http://store.appl...](https://web.archive.org/web/20111001165346/http://store.apple.com/us)
(2011) and
[https://web.archive.org/web/20090312055045/http://store.appl...](https://web.archive.org/web/20090312055045/http://store.apple.com/us)
(2009) are taken up by third-party products.

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niix
I wish the menu icons at the top were a custom web-font or SVG. They look a
bit blurry.

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r00fus
Images seem to load slowly on my traffic-shaped connection.

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hlfcoding
Apple's website is just getting worse and worse...

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peterbraden
Using user agent sniffing for responsiveness...

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thebouv
Noticed that too. What a poor decision -- UA sniffing is ultimately
unmaintainable. And what's funny is how everyone is going full on responsive
and moved away from UA sniffing because of the move to phones like Apple's.
Yet here they're not. Strange.

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Aardwolf
All I see is the fancy-scrolling kind of website with pictures of products.

No photo of the redesign of the store?

It's not even clear if this is about a physical store or an app store...

~~~
knd775
That website is the store...

