In the news

Apple is about to open a new store in New York City, and like the others in the Big Apple, this one is architecturally stunning.  The store, which opens tomorrow, is located in the Upper West Side on Broadway at 67th Street, and as ifo AppleStore writes, the store will be a beacon visible for several blocks at night and in the daytime will look different throughout the day and throughout the seasons because of the way that sunlight enters the store.  The store has huge walls made of marble and stainless steel, walls made of glass and a 50-foot ceiling made of glass.  At first look, it appears that the store has just one level with super high ceilings, but on closer inspection you see that there is also a spiral staircase that leads to a level below.  ifo AppleStore has pictures here.  Other iPhone-related news from this past week:

• Ron Johnson is Apple’s Senior Vice President for Retail, the guy responsible for all of the Apple Stores.  (I had a chance to chat with him once at Apple’s Fifth Avenue store in New York; that’s us in the picture at the right.)  In connection with the opening of the Upper West Side store, Johnson made some announcements yesterday about the Apple Stores in general.  First, he announced that going forward, Apple will start to open larger stores.  He also announced that about 50 more stores (over half outside of the U.S.) will be opened in 2010 (up from around 26 in 2009), including a few large, significant stores such as this Upper West Side store and the Apple Store that recently opened at The Louvre in Paris.  Apple certainly isn’t have trouble finding people to work at the stores; Johnson announced that there are over 100,000 job applications on file for Apple Stores worldwide, and for the new Upper West Side store there were 10,000 applications for 200 jobs.  Apple is also replacing the Windows Mobile-based handheld devices that they used to use for checkouts with specially modified iPod touch units.  You can get more details on these announcements at the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, ifo AppleStore and Gizmodo.
• Speaking of stores, back in February, I wrote
  
  that there are five places to buy an iPhone in the U.S.:  an Apple
  
  Store, an AT&T Store, Best Buy, Sam’s and Walmart.  We are now
  
  about to see a six retailer:  RadioShack.  iLounge reports
  
  on a RadioShack announcement that stores in Dallas and New York will
  
  offer the iPhone this month, and the iPhone will be rolled out
  
  nationwide next year.  RadioShack has sold iPods for a while now, and
  
  they sell other smartphones, so hopefully this will be a good match for
  
  both Apple and RadioShack.
• Apple is successful not because it sells the most, but because it sells premium products on which it can make a profit.  MG Siegler writes for TechCrunch that “While Rivals Jockey for Market Share, Apple Bathes in Profits.” 
• There are lots of apps that allow you to stream live radio stations, but if you want  your iPhone to truly operate as a radio and pick up local stations, iBiquity Digital has created an $80 accessory that allows an iPhone to receive HD radio.  AppleInsider has the details.
• Earlier this week, I posted some humorous ads from Verizon in which Verizon claims that its 3G network exceeds that of AT&T.  AppleInsider takes a closer look at Verizon’s claims, pointing out that AT&T’s network is faster and that its coverage reflects the concentration of the U.S. population.  The article notes, for example, that Verizon is comparing “its entire data network against just the faster portion of AT&T’s
  
  3G mobile data network while ignoring AT&T’s existing 2.5G network
  
  that approaches Verizon’s EVDO in speed.”  [UPDATE:  AT&T itself has issued a formal response, available here.]
• Whenever I include video on iPhone J.D., I always try to use YouTube because that displays so well on the iPhone.  Sometimes, however, I run across a website which uses Vimeo to host video, and you can’t view those on an iPhone.  Fortunately, in the future, this should change.  Ramu Nagappan reports for Macworld that Vimeo is starting to re-encode its content using H.264 so that it will play on an iPhone.  Only a few videos work now, but they will roll out more in the future.
• And finally, Gizmodo reports on a Japanese design house that has an idea of connecting 50 iPhones or iPod touch devices into one giant touch display.  To show how it might work, they put together a demo with 20 iPod touches, and here is a video of what that looks like: