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Apple Planning A SecondLife-type Store ? eWorld 2 ?
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Ok, so almost every tech blog worth its salt was keen on telling us that Apple is actually contemplating opening up a virtual Apple Store. All thanks to a patent filing by Apple which suggests towards this. Although, the patent was filed in 2006, at the peak of the SecondLife hype, it’s only now that it has become public (on the US government’s website).
The application says that the present forms of online shopping experiences are “sterile and isolating” and the patent attempts to offer a new experience where “[V]isitors are represented by avatars selected by those visitors ,rather than a more generic or uniform icon.”
In the mid nineties, Apple introduced a similar store. Based on virtual experience, it was termed eWorld. The service was supposed to be a customer support program that would help Apple reduce costs on providing support to the customers. eWorld was highly priced and poorly marketed. It was buried under five folders in the newer Mac systems. Most of the new users didn’t even know about it. The monthly subscription cost was $8.95 which included only two free hours of use. Additional hours were priced at $4.95 for the evenings and weekends, and $7.90 per hour from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays A much hyped and promised Windows version was never released, and eWorld was officially shut down on March 31, 1996.
Well, some believe that Apple is not actually planning to introduce anything close to a virtual store and the present patent is just another one in the never ending list of patents filed by corporations that never see the light of the day. However, there are reasons to believe that they might be serious. The broadband speeds have taken off, especially in the United States. When it’s possible to play SecondLife, it sure will be possible to navigate through Apple’s virtual store. Moreover, the prices of accessing such a service have come down drastically over the years.
With iTunes, Apple has tasted success in managing an online web store. And with Apple selling more Macs now than ever and commanding the user interface trick with iPhone, the time is apt for Apple to launch a virtual estore. If its Apple, it’s gonna get the interface right, and the rest will be taken care of by the “cool factor” usually associated with Apple products.
So, is this the next BOOM , Mr. Jobs.
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Apple fan boys must be ecstatic
“it’s only now that it has become public”
From my own experience with patents this actually seems ahead of schedule. Patents can take years and years to be awarded.