Win McNamee/Reuters
Late Apple CEO Steve Jobs in 2001.
- The first Apple retail stores opened their doors in May 2001.
- The first stores had a mix of furniture, hawked deals on third-party products, and had dedicated Genius Bars where people could go for tech support.
- Since then, Apple had made the stores look sleeker and more modern and the Genius Bar has become a thing of the past.
- When the stores opened in 2001, Tim Cook was Apple's senior vice president of operations - these days, he's CEO.
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Back in 2001, Apple launched something new that would be ubiquitous in American life and would inspire several other tech companies to follow suit.
But it wasn't a revolutionary new gadget that signified you were on the cutting edge of technology - it was a retail store inside a mall in suburban America.
Apple's first two physical retail locations opened in May 2001 in McLean, Virginia, and Glendale, California. Then-CEO Steve Jobs announced that the stores would be the first of 25 the company planned to open in 2001 as a way for Apple customers to "learn and experience the things they can actually do with a computer, like make movies, burn custom music CDs, and publish their digital photos on a personal website."
These days, Apple has more than 500 retail stores worldwide.
But the Apple retail experience has evolved significantly over the past 19 years. Gone are the curved tables, colorful carpets, and Genius Bar. In their place are long wooden tables chosen by former design chief Jony Ive and roving employees who can take you through the checkout process using just their iPhone.
Here's what Apple stores looked like when they first opened compared to how they look today.
