I was excited when I realized that being in San Fransisco for the Financial Times 'Business of Luxury meant I was also going to see the new Apple Store concept a day after it opened.

I needn't have been.

To quote one friend this is "same old, same old" albeit with the twist of bringing the outdoors inside. It's Scandanavian airport meets hotel lobby - and, my biggest bugbear about the current format, it does nothing to absorb people or noise, remains. It's still a scrum not conducive to spending a relatively large sum of money.

The sheer scale of this environment belittles the product to the point it's hard to find it. Tucked into shelves amongst acres of light wood.

The plus points are, without doubt the outdoor terrace, and the massive 'hanger doors' which were wide open to Union Square - but that's not going to be replicable on many of their sites around the world for both space and climate reasons. Without this feature I'm not entirely sure what much has changed.

I had hoped for more.