Apple today announced that its new Apple Marunouchi store in Toyko is set to open on Saturday, September 7. Marunouchi is Apple's third store in Japan to open since last April, and it is the largest Apple Store in Japan.
Apple Marunouchi is located near the Imperial Palace and across from the historic Tokyo Station. Apple's senior vice president of Retail and People, Deirdre O'Brien, said that the Marunouchi store marks a significant moment in Apple's relationship with Japan.
"Marunouchi has amazing energy and our teams can't wait to welcome customers to our largest store in Japan for the first time on Saturday," O'Brien said.
According to Apple, the split-level Marunouchi store was built with a unique facade, featuring two-story vitrine windows that were constructed from "specially cast aluminum" to allow them to feature three-dimensional rounded corners.
The windows are a first in an Apple retail location and are designed to allow the "vibrant street life" of the surrounding area to connect with the interior of the store. Bamboo lines the interior of the windows.
Marunouchi will feature "world-class creators" leading Today at Apple sessions, kicking off with The Tokyo Creative Guild, which is a special 12-part series that Apple is introducing to celebrate the store's opening.
Customers can begin signing up for Today at Apple sessions at Marunouchi starting now. Apple says that later this month, its Fukuoka store will also be expanding to a new location, and the remodel of Apple Omotesandō will be completed.
Apple has ordered 22 million OLED panels from Samsung Display for the first foldable iPhone, signaling a significantly larger production target than the display industry had previously anticipated, ET News reports.
In the now-seemingly deleted report, ET News claimed that Samsung plans to mass-produce 11 million inward-folding OLED displays for Apple next year, as well as 11 million...
Friday December 5, 2025 9:40 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Apple is about to release iOS 26.2, the second major point update for iPhones since iOS 26 was rolled out in September, and there are at least 15 notable changes and improvements worth checking out. We've rounded them up below.
Apple is expected to roll out iOS 26.2 to compatible devices sometime between December 8 and December 16. When the update drops, you can check Apple's servers for the ...
Monday December 8, 2025 4:54 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Apple is actively testing under-screen Face ID for next year's iPhone 18 Pro models using a special "spliced micro-transparent glass" window built into the display, claims a Chinese leaker.
According to "Smart Pikachu," a Weibo account that has previously shared accurate supply-chain details on Chinese Android hardware, Apple is testing the special glass as a way to let the TrueDepth...
Monday December 8, 2025 10:18 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple today seeded the second release candidate version of iOS 26.2 to developers and public beta testers, with the software coming one week after Apple seeded the first RC. The release candidate represents the final version iOS 26.2 that will be provided to the public if no further bugs are found.
Registered developers and public beta testers can download the betas from the Settings app on...
Wednesday December 10, 2025 2:52 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Google Maps on iOS quietly gained a new feature recently that automatically recognizes where you've parked your vehicle and saves the location for you.
Announced on LinkedIn by Rio Akasaka, Google Maps' senior product manager, the new feature auto-detects your parked location even if you don't use the parking pin function, saves it for up to 48 hours, and then automatically removes it once...
Monday December 8, 2025 9:23 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple's chipmaking chief Johny Srouji has reportedly indicated that he plans to continue working for the company for the foreseeable future.
"I love my team, and I love my job at Apple, and I don't plan on leaving anytime soon," said Srouji, in a memo obtained by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
Here is Srouji's full memo, as shared by Bloomberg:I know you've been reading all kind of rumors and...
Monday December 1, 2025 2:40 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models at the same time, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 18 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect for the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max.
One thing worth...
Monday December 8, 2025 11:10 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple and Google are teaming up to make it easier for users to switch between iPhone and Android smartphones, according to 9to5Google. There is a new Android Canary build available today that simplifies data transfer between two smartphones, and Apple is going to implement the functionality in an upcoming iOS 26 beta.
Apple already has a Move to iOS app for transferring data from an Android...
Apple today announced that Fitness+ is expanding to 28 new markets on December 15 in the service's largest international rollout since launch, accompanied by new language dubbing and a K-Pop music genre.
Apple Fitness+ will become available in Chile, Hong Kong, India, the Netherlands, Singapore, Taiwan, and additional regions on December 15, with Japan scheduled to follow early next year....
Apple's senior vice president of hardware technologies Johny Srouji could be the next leading executive to leave the company amid an alarming exodus of leading employees, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports.
Srouji apparently recently told CEO Tim Cook that he is "seriously considering leaving" in the near future. He intends to join another company if he departs. Srouji leads Apple's chip design ...
Fantastic location for a new store. Because Marunouchi is primarily a financial district, the area used to be a concrete ghost town on the weekends. But it was redeveloped a decade or so ago to accommodate upscale retail, and is now a lovely place to spend a weekend window shopping, people watching, and walking around.
Too bad the customer service of Apple in Japan is quite slow and terrible.
I’m beginning to question your perspective or at least motives for being so negative despite living in Japan?
Not only have I been to several Apple stores in Japan, but I got excellent service from an English speaking Japanese person each time. “Welcome, can I help you” was a standard greeting and I was even able to ask questions about the iPhone X.
It is uncommon for a regular Japanese person to speak much English, but Apple seems to employ at least one to help foreign visitors.
My experiences of customer service at Apple Stores in Japan have been the exact reverse of heylarry's "quite slow and terrible" experiences. Would Apple allow anything less than excellent customer service in Japan, which has a cultural reputation for politeness, efficiency, and excellent service? It's unthinkable.
Will someone who has been to the new Marunouchi store please report back to this thread with your fresh impressions?
