The Apple Store - No Place for Kids
If you’re like me - a father of three who lives in the suburbs and wonders how the heck he got to be 41 without running with the bulls or watching the sunrise over the Serengeti - you tend to separate the world into ‘child friendly’ and ‘not child friendly.’
In the first category goes Chuck E Cheese, the Disney Store and the playground. In the second goes pretty much anywhere I can go and cuss without my wife giving me the ‘gee thanks for teaching the boy how to say ....’ look.
So where does the Apple Store fall into this continuum? Gather round....
A Sunday afternoon in January. Just me and the daughters since my wife took my son to a play-date. With nothing in particular on the agenda, I took my twin princesses (Princess 1 and Princess 2) to The Westchester (A.K.A. “the ultimate shopping experience"). to see what entertainment and educational value the Apple Store could provide the average precocious three year old.
And if we get to spend some time at the iPod petting zoo, so much the better for Daddy.
Once we safely maneuvered the parking and made our way to Shopping Level Two and after a minor detour to the Disney Store, we made our way into the Kubrikian spaces of the Westchester Apple Store.
We pushed our way past the illogically placed check out counter and the even less logically placed display counters until we came to The Table. Every larger Apple Store has The Table. It’s the kindergarten height round table with six or eight iMacs and low comfy seats. All the iMacs come loaded with the latest in licensed character educational software.
Except at this particular location, only half were occupied by children. The other half by grown-ups (waiting for their appointment at the Genius Bar I suppose).
So we pushed our way past the Studio counter, around the bend and over the river until we came to the Wall Of Software. Every Apple Store has a Wall Of Software. And at most one and a half shelves of each Wall Of Software is dedicated to the younger set. And at this Apple Store amidst mulitple copies of Final Cut Pro, I found one Dora, a couple of Increadibles, a KidPix and something with a phrase in the title that would make my six year old son crack up but is supposed to teach him something or other about math.
At this point, the crowds and the noise and lack of lunch moved Princess 2 to sit down on the floor and shout “I’m hungry.” So no iPod petting zoo for Daddy.
There’s been a lot of discussion lately about the quality and general attitude of the staff at the Apple Stores. You could argue (and I might agree) that the Apple Store doesn’t have to cater to all ages, or even be remotely child friendly. On the other hand, Apple is putting these stores in suburban shopping malls - who do they think shops in White Plains? Urban hipsters?
Here’s a tip folks, get some more kids games - I know they are out there. If you only stock one shelf and most of them only run under Classic anyway, why bother at all?
How about some classes? I’d rather my son learn Ruby on Rails before he learns a useless foreign language, so why not have some in-store classes targeting the 6-10 year old crowd? Use iWeb to make your first web site. His school is full of eMacs - there’s an eMac for every student, teacher, cafeteria lady and playground monitor… do you think there’s an opportunity for a little cross promotion here?
The Apple Store doesn’t have to be the Disney Store. But it doesn’t have to be Banana Republic either. And while we’re at it… tell those grown-ups to get out of the kid seats.
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Comments
“How about some classes? I’d rather my son learn Ruby on Rails before he learns a useless foreign language, so why not have some in-store classes targeting the 6-10 year old crowd?”
That is a sad statement. Learning a foreign language is invaluable. Same for learning music. You’d rather have them learn some fad programming language?
Slow news day? Another reason why Applematters doesn’t matter.
I think pretty much all Apple software is user-friendly enough for children. Maybe they could begin exploring ways to strengthen that link. Maybe add a ‘kidify’ button in the menu of OS X and/or applications.
Luke - interesting point. My six year old son usually picks up the visual cues pretty quickly when he’s playing on the computer.
Maybe an ‘extra large icons’ options, or ‘easy interface’ option?
I second what Ericdano said...what a sad statement on foreign languages...in the end, that’s why lovely U.S. does what it does to other countries in the world...utter disregard to foreign cultures…
I third it.
Same
Uh guys? Sounded like a joke to me…
“...utter disregard to foreign cultures...”
Don’t forget love of satire.
I say take the kiddies to appropriate places and go to Apple by yourself. I’m getting sick and tired of irresponsible parents and their whining children (of course, I’m not saying your children are whining or you’re irresponsible). Screaming kids are almost as annoying as clueless hipsters in Apple stores.
(Dare I say if it was a joke it was not good enough to be worth making? That is, on a site like this you can expect to be able to tell if something is a joke because if it wasn’t worth the space, it would have been edited out?)
Nope, here’s another person for whom that didn’t sound like a joke at all. What it did sound like was parochial and narrow-minded. Pity.
Language scmanguage. What use is a foreign language when everyone else (of consequence) speaks English?
You are right about the grownups. They were just plain rude. Just like folks who feel compelled to make a comment about “disregard to foreign cultures.” On a BLOG no less.
Pax Americana!
Yeah.... OK!.... And now back to the topic at hand....
You mean to tell me that those comfortable little chairs around the iMac table were for kids? Then answer me this, why the hell can I play Doom 3 and Unreal Tournament on said iMac’s? If you think Americans utterly disregard foreign cultures, then you obviously haven’t seen what we’re sometimes capable of doing to our own.
Eric, wrote (well not the first piece):
“How about some classes? I’d rather my son learn Ruby on Rails before he learns a useless foreign language, so why not have some in-store classes targeting the 6-10 year old crowd?”
That is a sad statement. Learning a foreign language is invaluable. Same for learning music. You’d rather have them learn some fad programming language?
Slow news day? Another reason why Applematters doesn’t matter.
Learning a foreign language does for most kids appear useless. I learned Italian at school and have never had any use for it. That makes it useless in a practical sense, which is clearly what David was saying. And I suspect he was comparing it to the software programs that teach a foreign language. That’s certainly the impression I got. I assumed he meant in his Apple Store they had demos of foreign language software - which he considers are significantly less useful than learning a programming language.
Yes, I found the learning of a foreign language to be enriching and helped me better understand the world, but only because we also studied the Italian history and culture in the process. But, in the last 25 years, the language side of it has provided no practical or useful benefit to me - and I’m sure most of my classmates. It has been utterly useless. It would have been more useful to spend that time learning even more about the culture and history, than learning the language.
Also where did David say anything about learning music and it’s value?
And “learning a fad programming language”? With the prevalence of computers, learning ANY computer language is a great benefit to a child and their future. And what proof do you have Ruby on Rails is a fad?
Lastly, how is learning a foreign language invaluable and yet learning a programming language - even a fad one - is not?
I’ll take responsibility for not catching that David’s comment may have been misinterpreted. It was certainly intended as a joke by him, and by myself. So no more comments about the validity of learning other languages.