New Apple.com Website Encompasses Built-In Store

You know how Apple has a regular website (with product information and marketing material), and a separate online store site where you go to actually buy things? Well, no more. They’ve just rolled out a new, simpler, integrated site. Looks pretty good, with simpler URLs (WebObjects no more?). Feels faster, too, but maybe that’s the new-and-shiny placebo effect.

Knowing what I know about the old online store, this was a massive behind-the-scenes undertaking, but the result looks and works like what most people would have expected all along. (Someone should count the instances of “finally” in the headlines about this change.) The old two-site approach was like having separate rooms in a physical retail store — a showroom up front, and a sales room in the back. Now it’s just one room. (And in another subtle parallel to the physical Apple stores, the website now uses a shopping bag instead of a cart.)

★ Thursday, 6 August 2015