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NYC's subway wireless will soon reach Grand Central Terminal and Queens
New Yorkers won't have to wait long to get internet access at some of the biggest commuting hubs in their fair city -- Transit Wireless has started the second phase of its subway wireless rollout. The initial construction will bring cellular and WiFi access to 11 subway stations in midtown Manhattan, including the all-important Grand Central Terminal. Those in the borough of Queens, meanwhile, should start seeing underground coverage in March. When the current phase wraps up in June, the expanded service should give internet access to about 250 million riders per year. That's no mean feat when even some of the bigger public WiFi projects have much smaller potential audiences.
iPhone 5s first-person shopper report
Didn't get the experience of hauling yourself out of bed at an ungodly hour, only to go stand in a line with other enthusiasts waiting to buy your new iPhone? We caught up with two 5s buyers in New York City who did just that; iOS developer (NYC Bike Buddy) Brian Papa and friend Megu Kobayashi. The two queued up outside Grand Central Terminal starting around 7 AM; by the time they got into the store, the gold and white iPhone 5s handsets were sold out.
Apple just arrived at Grand Central Terminal, we hop aboard (video)
For many New Yorkers, Grand Central Station Terminal is where you go to escape the island -- not to leisurely browse aisles of iPhone accessories, or pop in for a Genius Bar appointment. But apparently Apple has a slightly different vision for the city's transportation hub, opening its fifth NYC store along the main hall's 23,000 square foot east balcony. We dropped by for the grand opening this morning, which came complete with the standard Apple Store t-shirt giveaway and what seemed like hundreds of red shirt-clad retail employees. As NYC's gateway to Connecticut, Grand Central is typically incredibly crowded during rush hour, but the enormous sunlight-filled main hall was packed to the brim today with spectators -- eager customers queued up in a hallway out of view, beginning early this morning. The store itself is huge, occupying the entire east balcony and several side rooms, with a large genius bar, training area and accessory alcove at either side. Eager to pop in for a visit? Thumb through the gallery below to step inside, and jump past the break to experience the cacophonous chaos at Grand Central.%Gallery-141464%
Grand Central Apple Store opening December 9th, giving New Yorkers eight billionth way to buy an iPad
It's been a long time coming, but it looks like Apple's finally ready to take the wraps off its latest store. The company's latest New York City outpost is set to get its grand opening in landmark Grand Central Terminal on December 9th, leaving only a few weeks for some combative holiday shopping amidst tourists, fellow commuters and kids from the suburbs. According to an email sent to customers, the store will open its doors for the first time on Friday at 10AM, so you should probably start lining up in an hour or two -- after all, nothing beats claustrophobia, a little elbowing and that new Apple Store smell, right? [Thanks, David]
New York State probes Apple's deal for NYC Grand Central Terminal space
Exactly one day after the terms of Apple's rental deal for its new Grand Central Terminal retail store became public, New York State investigators are looking into whether the Metropolitan Transit Authority gave "overly generous terms" to Apple for the space. The New York Post reports that the state comptroller is investigating the terms of Apple's lease and other facets of the MTA's business dealings "The article in the New York Post about the MTA's contract with Apple in Grand Central Terminal is a cause for concern," comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said. "This is a prime property, and I intend to make sure that the MTA hasn't given away the store." Apple did indeed receive quite generous terms for its lease; alone among all businesses in Grand Central Terminal, Apple will not have to share a percentage of its sales with MTA, and its rent for the space is much lower than most other tenants. However, Apple also paid the previous tenant US$5 million to clear out early, and Apple is paying for infrastructure improvements to the space out of its own pocket. MTA expects its generous rental terms to pay off in the long run; it predicts the presence of an Apple Store will increase traffic in Grand Central Terminal and thereby increase revenues in surrounding businesses which do yield a proportion of their sales to MTA. However, our own back-of-the-envelope calculations show that in order for MTA to receive a similar return on investment from Apple compared to the landlord of Apple's 5th Avenue space, other Grand Central Terminal businesses will need to increase sales by (a perhaps unrealistic) 7.5 percent. Apple's Grand Central Terminal retail store will open on December 9.
Details on Apple's Grand Central Terminal retail deal
Apple is soon set to open a huge new store in New York City's Grand Central Terminal, and it's expected to be one of its largest and most profitable venues. The New York Post has obtained some details on the deal Apple got on the space, and let's just say I want someone from Apple in my corner negotiating for me if I ever buy a house. First, while it's expected that Apple's Grand Central Terminal location will see US$100 million in annual sales, unlike all other retail entities in Grand Central, Apple won't be sharing a percentage of that revenue with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Second, Apple is reportedly paying only $60 per square foot for renting the space, far below what most other tenants are paying. The Post cites an upcoming Shake Shack burger restaurant as one example; that outlet will pay $200 per square foot in rent. MTA has justified the terms of the deal by saying it expects the Apple Store to generate significantly increased traffic and higher sales at nearby stores where it does reap a percentage of revenues. By comparison, Apple's 5th Avenue location reportedly generates $400 million in annual sales, with approximately $15 million of that going to the location's owner. In order for the MTA to see similar percentages, sales at outlets adjacent to the Grand Central Terminal Apple Store will need to rise by a minimum of 7.5 percent. That's assuming the estimates of $100 million per year in Apple Store sales and MTA's $500,000 revenues per 1 percent increase in sales are both correct. There's no way of knowing whether sales will rise by that much -- the new Apple Store hasn't even opened yet -- but count me among the skeptical.
Grand Central Apple Store reportedly close to opening
It's possible that Apple's flagship Grand Central Terminal store in New York City is set to open as early as this (Black) Friday, November 25th. If 9to5Mac's sources are to be believed, Apple will announce the store opening tomorrow by removing the black boards that are currently hanging around the store, blocking views to the construction and setup inside. The Black Friday opening of the Grand Central store was first reported by PhoneArena back in October. Apple's Grand Central Terminal store will be notable for many reasons. It will be the largest Apple store, by square footage (23,000 sq ft, including offices and stock rooms), in the world. It will also have a staff of over 300 (impressive, but not a record) to take care of customers from the potential pool of 750,000 commuters that stream through Grand Central each day. Apple's grand openings are usually massive events in themselves, with hundreds lining up at the door hours -- sometimes days -- before the opening. If the store is a flagship store, like the Grand Central one is, the lines of waiting Apple fans can reach the thousands. Throw in a Black Friday opening and you're looking at potentially the largest group of waiting shoppers in the world. Of course since Grand Central Station is one of America's largest travel hubs, due to security issues it's possible the City of New York may not allow early lines to form for the grand opening.
Apple Store coming to Grand Central Terminal, travel disruptions guaranteed for next iPhone launch
It's one thing for Fifth Ave. to get clogged up each time a new iPhone or iPad gets released, but Grand Central Terminal? Avid NYC commuters best plan their vacation days accordingly, as one of the city's biggest transit hubs is about to get a heck of a lot more busy -- and not because White Plains is the new Southampton. The New York Post is reporting that Apple and the MTA have agreed on a decade-long deal that'll see a 23,000-square foot Apple Store take the place of Charlie Palmer's Metrazur restaurant, with Cupertino's rent to be set at $800,000 per year (rising to $1 million after ten years pass). For those curious, that's around $500,000 more than the eatery before it, and Apple's responsible for refurbishing the space. That cacophony of voices you hear? Touristy cheers drowning out local jeers.
Grand Central retail store lease is signed, could be approved next week
The possibility of an Apple retail store gracing New York's busy Grand Central Terminal has been rumored, reported and bandied about for months now; in February, it looked like a deal was in motion, but in March reports suggested the plan had run off the rails. Now it's close to being reality, again. Today the New York Post reports that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (which manages GCT) and Apple have signed a 10-year lease worth US$8 million to put the world's largest Apple retail outlet on the terminal's north and northeast balconies, looking down at the iconic clock in the central waiting area. The 23,000 ft2 (2137 m2) site is currently occupied by the Metrazur restaurant. With approval by the MTA's finance committee and full board expected later this week, the deal looks to be locked in. [As pointed out by Apple 2.0, the store will actually be slightly smaller than two of the UK Apple Stores.] A train station might seem to be an odd location for a high-end retail outlet like an Apple store, but Grand Central is not exactly an ordinary railway terminal. As the commuter hub for New York City's affluent northern suburbs, it hosts hundreds of thousands of passengers and visitors every day and features a wide array of shops and restaurants. Considering that almost every Apple product can be wrangled onto a train pretty easily -- except a Mac Pro, larger iMacs and possibly the two 27" displays -- the new store could see tremendous business during the afternoon rush. It could also take some of the customer load off of the 5th Avenue store, which is now as much a tourist hot zone as it is an actual retail operation. If this store does get built out, it will be the city's sixth; Manhattan already features four Apple stores (W14, Lincoln Center, 5th Ave and Soho) and Staten Island has one. Brooklyn's borough president made a play for a store last year, and there are rumors that Apple's retail team is looking at space in the upcoming Atlantic Yards arena/retail center. [hat tip MacStories]
Snow Leopard's Grand Central Dispatch and OpenCL boost video encoding app by 50 percent
It'll take some time before we see the true impact of OpenCL and the newly-open-sourced Grand Central Dispatch on OS X, but we're definitely intrigued by this early report from Christophe Ducommun, developer of MovieGate, who says that shifting his app to use the new tech has increased performance by around 50 percent on the same hardware. Testing on a 2007 2.66GHz quad-core Mac Pro with a GeForce 8800GT, MovieGate MPEG-2 encode speeds went from 104fps under Leopard to 150fps under Snow Leopard, and decoding CPU usage dropped from 165 percent to 70 percent. Now, yes, that's just one app, and most users don't have four cores to play with, but it's still an eye-opening result, and we're definitely hoping it's the start of a trend. [Via MacRumors]
VoiceCentral integrates Google Voice with the iPhone
If you're one of the lucky ones to have scored an invite to Google Voice, check out VoiceCentral. It's a very slick application which integrates well with the iPhone, making it possible to make calls through your Google Voice (or GrandCentral) account. Why would you want this? My primary reason for wanting an application for GV is so that I can make calls and have my Google Voice number appear on the Caller-ID. VoiceCentral makes this a simple process. When you first install the app, it asks you to select your iPhone number on the Settings page. When you make a call through the app, it happens in two steps: 1) your iPhone rings (this is Google Voice's servers calling your iPhone), 2) your call is connected. Why is this important? If you end up leaving a message for whoever you are calling, their voicemail system may give them the option to call you back at the number you called from. Our landline phones also make it easy to return calls from the caller-ID list. As a Google Voice user, I want those calls to go to my Google Voice number, not my iPhone. If you're a fan of Google Voice, you know that having a central place for all of your voicemails is great. Google Voice will transcribe those voicemails (my favorite feature, although sometimes having a computer try to decipher my friend's "late weekend night" messages does lead to some interesting "translation issues"). VoiceCentral will let you access not only those voicemails (in a style very similar to iPhone's own Visual Voicemail) but if you tap on the arrow, it will also show you the transcription. You can even read the message without listening to it, which is especially handy for checking messages when you are in a meeting, a movie theater (oh, like you've never!), or anywhere loud enough that you might not be able to hear it. The transcripts can also be copied (on iPhones running OS 3.0 or later, of course) and pasted into notes or emails if needed. As you'd expect, VoiceCentral also integrates with your existing iPhone contact list, and there's also a keypad which allows you to make calls or send SMS. The "Send SMS" feature has had some issues, but Riverturn has a newer version which fixes the problem. As you are no doubt used to hearing by now, they are waiting on Apple to approve the newer version. It's also important to note that there is no way to designate any application except the built-in Phone app as the default, so any phone numbers which you tap from email messages or web pages will open in the built-in app, rather than in Skype or other telephony apps. Google appears to be readying its own GV iPhone app for release, although it hasn't made it into the App Store yet. Anyone familiar with the approval process knows that could mean it is hours, days, or weeks away from being released. The Blackberry and Android apps are already available. Is $2.99 [iTunes Link] too much to spend on an app when there may be a free alternative right around the corner? Not for me. In fact, the only thing which keeps this app from replacing the native Phone app on my dock is the lack of a "Favorites" tab, which I use for nearly all of the outgoing calls I make on my iPhone.
Apple puts a freeze on Snow Leopard APIs, freeing up developers to work their magic
Can you taste it? No, we suppose you probably can't. While Microsoft has been happy to share Windows 7 with just about anyone with a taste for danger, Apple has followed the traditional route of development with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, sharing it with developers alone. The good news is that things are starting to coalesce in the run-up to WWDC, with Apple just now informing developers that Snow Leopard's APIs are now frozen, with no more alterations planned before release. That means developers can work on their Snow Leopard-ready applications without much fear of Apple mucking things up with late game OS-level changes, and is a decent milestone towards what should presumably be a summer launch. The latest build also includes Chinese handwriting recognition for Macs with multitouch trackpads, similar to the functionality included in iPhone Software 2.0, and also finalizes the Grand Central architecture, which lets developers address multiple processing cores without all the know-how and complication usually required.Update: MacRumors is also reporting that the new build includes Windows HFS+ drivers with Apple's Boot Camp utility, allowing Windows-on-Mac users to access their Mac OS X HFS+ partitions out of the box.
Apple applies for trademark on the "Grand Central" Snow Leopard feature
When Apple announced Snow Leopard, they also detailed a new developer service that can be used to full take advantage of the dual cores in newer Intel Macs. The Apple website tells us the following about GrandCentral: Grand Central takes full advantage [of the processor cores] by making all of Mac OS X multicore aware and optimizing it for allocating tasks across multiple cores and processors. Grand Central also makes it much easier for developers to create programs that squeeze every last drop of power from multicore systems.MacNN is reporting that Apple applied for a trademark on the name "Grand Central" under USPTO serial number 77626943. The trademark was filed under "009" classification, which is "computer software; computer operating system software." We can only wonder if this trademark filing will cause an uproar from Google, who acquired the Grand Central telephony service.Continue reading to see a screenshot of the trademark filing.[via MacNN]
Grandialer, an iPhone app for GrandCentral
If you are one of the lucky ones who got in on the GrandCentral beta, then you might be interested in a new iPhone app that integrates with the GrandCentral service. Grandialer (iTunes link) allows you to use your iPhone to call people using your GrandCentral telephone number. The service can be used on EDGE since it's not a VoIP service. The application works by connecting your calls through GrandCentral and ringing back your iPhone. To set up the application, you just need to specify a ringback number for GrandCentral to call you back. To do this, just navigate to Settings > Phone number in the Grandialer application.Grandialer is a free application and is available today on the App Store. For more information on the application you can visit the developer's site.
