Flagship Apple Store in Brisbane, Australia to Open January 17

Not envious here, but with roughly 22.6 million people, and 21 Apple stores, fwiw our friends down under have the highest # of Apple stores per capita, even more than the US with 254 stores for well over 316 million people.

Not So Fast

That's totally fair. I agree with you. I was just crunching the numbers for curiosity's sake. And the majority of Australians live in on the east coast. Not just the south eastern part. This Brisbane Apple store is coming to the north eastern state.

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Actually without the Queensland bureaucracy the store would have never happened. Here's the short version of it all.

1. A while back Apple hired contractors to do the Apple store here.
2. Contracting firm hired to do the Apple store went bankrupt and out of business.
3. Apple said that's that and gave up on the store as their subcontractors were bankrupt.
4. Queensland government told Apple, they had to leave the building in a certain state for the next tenants. Apple didn't want to pay all that money just to prep the building for someone else so they made up their mind to actually finish it and open it.
5. Keeping the outside of the building all historical like it always was, was always on the cards. Apple understands the local heritage of the buildings they use. This building is called the McArthur building because the General used it back in the day over 50 years ago.

3 Apple found another builder and recommenced the build.
Apple and the BCC did not agree on the clean up the front of store, this meeting was held on the 17 June 2012 and work ceased that day. See BCC DA's for 233 255 Queen for DA in 2013 that allowed this.
4. Precision requested Apple return the site to a make good end of lease status, this went to court apparently although there is no record of this happening.
5. Macarthur Chambers is the name. Signage and the flag were a recent innovation. It is unlikely the previous council will have agreed to this.

Alright, but to be fair the US, in addition to being the birthplace of Apple, is also more densely populated than Australia; a quick search reveals 11 times as densely populated, in fact. And the bulk of your population is around the periphery of the Australian continent, with a heavy concentration in the South-East.

That's totally fair. I agree with you. I was just crunching the numbers for curiosity's sake. And the majority of Australians live in on the east coast. Not just the south eastern part. This Brisbane Apple store is coming to the north eastern state.

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I heard that this Apple Store would have opened sooner if it weren't for the bureaucratic nonsense of Brisbane City Council and Queensland State Government.

Actually without the Queensland bureaucracy the store would have never happened. Here's the short version of it all.

1. A while back Apple hired contractors to do the Apple store here.
2. Contracting firm hired to do the Apple store went bankrupt and out of business.
3. Apple said that's that and gave up on the store as their subcontractors were bankrupt.
4. Queensland government told Apple, they had to leave the building in a certain state for the next tenants. Apple didn't want to pay all that money just to prep the building for someone else so they made up their mind to actually finish it and open it.
5. Keeping the outside of the building all historical like it always was, was always on the cards. Apple understands the local heritage of the buildings they use. This building is called the McArthur building because the General used it back in the day over 50 years ago.

Seems that time-zone wise, it will be (one of) the first location to sell the iPhone 6. :cool:

On a global level, yes. As far as Australia goes, when Day Light savings kicks in Brisbane is 1 hour behind the rest of East Coast Australia. Depending when the products ship, it could be behind a few of the other cities (only just though). It wouldn't have mattered last year with the September 20 date, but I imagine daylight savings was in effect for the iPad launches.

Not that one hour difference will kill too many people.