After a successful launch of its music service and new iPods earlier this week, Apple Computer Inc. will introduce both products to consumers on Friday night at a special Apple retail launch event.
The event will be held at every Apple retail location from 6:00 pm – 10:00 pm and will be similar to the launch of Mac OS X Jaguar that took place last year.
“We decided with the launch of our music strategy this week — both the iPod and the music store — it would be great to have an event at our retail stores,” Ron Johnson, Apple’s senior vice president of retail, told MacCentral. “All stores at 6:00 pm Friday night will host a music event called Live on Stage. This will be the first time people can see and buy the new iPod.”
People attending the iPod event tonight, will receive a free event poster and you can buy a limited edition iPod event t-shirt for US$10 — the t-shirt is free if you purchase an iPod. In addition, you can also enter to win a JBL sound system worth $1800.
Each store will have live entertainment of some kind. Musical group Glassjaw will appear at the SoHo store and BT will perform his “Laptop Symphony – Live Remix Set” at The Grove location. The other retail locations will also have entertainment from the local community.
“We will have live DJs in every store,” said Johnson. “These are local DJs from the individual markets who will be playing with mixers, concert-quality speakers and their iPod.”
If you don’t have access to Apple’s online music service, you can test it out at the company’s retail locations. Starting this week, Apple has made some minor changes in their retail stores to allow customers to try out the new products — more Macs are connected to speakers throughout the store to give customers a better idea of how the downloaded music will sound and 13 iPods will be placed around the store for people to try out.
Retail locations will also begin talking about music more in the retail store theaters with sessions called Music on the Mac.
Johnson said that while the event officially closes at 10:00 pm, all retail locations would remain open until every customer is served. At the Jaguar event last year, some retail locations remained open until the wee hours of the morning.
“We think it will be a really fun event for people to help us celebrate and to try out the music service and iPod,” said Johnson.
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