As I’ve written many times in the past, I’m part of the vast chorus that praises the Apple Store. And not just for the uncluttered product displays, the no-pressure sales people (who aren’t on commission), or the Genius Bar that provides expert help, but for the impressive architecture. Apple beautifies existing venues (Regent Street in London, rue Halevy near the Paris Opera) or commissions elegant new buildings, huge ones at times.
It’s a relentlessly successful story. Even the turmoil surrounding John Browett’s abbreviated tenure as head of Apple’s worldwide retail organization hasn’t slowed the pace of store openings and customer visits. (As always, Horace Dediu provides helpful statistics and analysis in his latest Asymco post.)
It has always struck me as odd that in Palo Alto, Apple’s heartland and Steve Jobs’ adopted hometown, Apple had only a modestly-sized, unremarkable venue on University Avenue, and an even smaller store in the Stanford Shopping Center.
All of that changed on October 27th when the black veil that shrouded an unmarked project was removed, and the newest Apple Store — what some are calling a “prototype” for future venues, a “flagship” store — was revealed. (For the civic-minded — or the insomniac — you can read the painfully detailed proposal, submitted to Palo Alto’s Architectural Review Board nearly three years ago, here.)
I came back from a trip on November 2nd, the day the iPad mini became available, and immediately headed downtown. The new store is big, bold, elegant, even more so at night when the very bright lights and large Apple logo on its front dominate the street scene. (So much so I heard someone venture that Apple has recast itself as the antagonist in its 1984 commercial.)
The store is impressive… but its also unpleasantly, almost unbearably noisy. And mine isn’t a voice in the wilderness. The wife of a friend walked in, spent a few minutes, and vowed to never return for fear of hearing loss. She’d rather go to the cramped but much more hospitable Stanford store.
A few days later, I heard a similar complaint from the spouse of an Apple employee. She used to enjoy accompanying her husband to the old Palo Alto store, but now refuses because of the cacophony.
‘Now you know the real reason for Browett’s firing’, a friend said, half-seriously. ‘How can you spend North of $15M on such a strategically placed, symbolic store, complete with Italian stone hand-picked by Jobs himself…and give no consideration to the acoustics? It’s bad for customers, it’s bad for the staff, it’s bad for business, and it’s bad for the brand. Apple appears to be more concerned with style than with substance!’
Ouch.
The sound problem stems from a combination of the elongated “Great Hall”, parallel walls, and reflective building materials. The visually striking glass roof becomes a veritable parabolic sound mirror. There isn’t a square inch of sound-absorbing material in the entire place.
A week later, I returned to the store armed with the SPL Meter iPhone app. As the name indicates, SPL Meter provides a Sound Pressure Level (SPL) measurement in decibels.(Decibels form a logarithmic scale where a 3 dB increase means roughly twice as much sound pressure — noise in our case; +10 dB is ten times the sound pressure.)
For reference, a normal conversation at 3 feet (1m) is 40 to 60 dB; a passenger car 30 feet away produces levels between 60 and 80 dB. From the Wikipedia article above: “[The] EPA-identified maximum to protect against hearing loss and other disruptive effects from noise, such as sleep disturbance, stress, learning detriment, etc. [is] 70 dB.”
On a relatively quiet Saturday evening, the noise level around the Genius Bar exceeded 75 dB:
Outside, the traffic noise registered a mere 65 dB. It was 10 db noisier inside the store than on always-busy University Avenue!
Even so, the store on that Friday was a virtual library compared to the day the iPad mini was launched, although I can’t quantify my impression: I didn’t have the presence of mind to whip out my iPhone and measure it.
Despite the (less-than-exacting) scientific evidence and the corroborating anecdotes, I began to have my doubts. Was I just “hearing things”? Could Apple really be this tone deaf?
Then I saw it: An SPL recorder — a professional one — perched on a tripod inside the store.
I also noticed two employees wearing omnidirectional sound recorders on their shoulders (thinking they might not like the exposure, I didn’t take their pictures.) Thus, it appears that Apple is taking the problem seriously.
But what can it do?
It’s a safe bet that Apple has already engaged a team of experts, acousticians who tweak the angles and surfaces in concert halls and problem venues. I’ve heard suggestions that Apple should install an Active Noise Control system: Cancel out sound waves by pumping in their inverted forms — all in real time. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work well (or at all) in a large space.
Bose produces a rather effective solution…in the controlled environment of headphones.
This prompted the spouse mentioned above to suggest that Apple should hand out Bose headphones at the door.
Two days after the noisy Apple store opened its doors, Browett was shown the exit. Either Tim Cook is fast on the draw or, more likely, my friend is wrong: Browett’s unceremonious departure had deeper roots, most likely a combination of a cultural mismatch and a misunderstanding of his role. The Browett graft didn’t take on the Apple rootstock, and the newly hired exec couldn’t accept that he was no longer a CEO.
Browett’s can’t be scapegoated for the acoustical nightmare in the new Apple Store. Did the rightly famous architectural firm, Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, not hear the problem? What about the highly reputable building contractor (DPR) which has built so many other Apple Stores? Did they stand by and say nothing, or could they simply not be heard?
Perhaps this was a case of “Launchpad Chicken”, a NASA phrase for a situation where many people see trouble looming but keep quiet and wait for someone else to bear the shame of aborting the launch. It reminds me of the Apple Maps fiasco: An obvious problem ignored.
What a waste spending all that money and raising expectations only to move from a slightly undersized but well-liked store to a bigger, noisier, colder environment that turns friends away.
Having tacitly admitted that there’s a problem, Apple’s senior management can now show they’ll stop at nothing to make the new store as inviting as it was intended to be.
Related columns:
- Science Fiction: An Apple-Curated App Store TweetIn an alternate universe, Apple has announced the App Store Guide and Blog. Choice morsels from the PR material follow. “We came to realize that a quarter million apps meant worse than nothing to Apple users”, said Apple’s CEO. “I get confused too! Reviews are often fake, lame, or downright incompetent. PR firms have been [...]...
- Mac App Store: Soon But Controversial Tweetby Jean-Louis Gassée This year, three wishes were on top of my list: A smaller, lighter MacBook, an app store for the Mac, and a curated iOS app store. I got two out of three. The 11” MacBook Air works quite well when the passenger in front of me fully reclines his seat; and Apple, [...]...
- Google and Apple are robbing us! TweetThat’s the cry of anguish heard in the executive suites of cellular carriers, poor things. Why the sorrow? Nuances removed, it boils down to this: . ISP (Internet Service Providers) don’t sell content, they bill at a flat rate regardless of what you download, music, e-mail, video. ISP don’t decide which computer you can and [...]...
- 10 Years of Apple Stores: the non-celebration TweetApple and understatement aren’t close relatives. Not that they don’t have a right to strut a bit: after all, under its returning co-founder, Apple 2.0 performed the most stunning corporate turn around ever — and shows no sign of slowing down. As a result, product launches, developer conferences and quarterly earnings announcements all turn into [...]...
- Apple: Three Intriguing Numbers TweetNo Monday Note last week: I was in The Country of Sin, enjoying pleasures such as TGV trips across a landscape of old villages, Romanesque churches, Rhône vineyards — and a couple of nuclear power plants. All this without our friendly TSA. Back in the Valley, Apple just released their latest quarterly numbers. They weren’t [...]...
37 Comments
And to make matters worse they play loud music in their stores.
John Paluska’s Mexican restaurant Comal in Berkeley uses the Constellation System from Meyer Sound Labs (also in Berkeley) to provide active noise-cancellation. Perhaps the instruments you saw being used to make sound/noise level measurements were the beginning phase of this.
The design is almost identical to the Houston-Highland Village store, which opened in March, and is equally loud. I suspect the design pre-dates Browett, given that the Houston
store was under construction since at least mid-2011.
That’s twice that Apple has pushed forward something that everyone working on knew were insufficient (this building and the maps product). Is this their Microsoft moment?
The Palo Alto store was small because it was store #2 or #3. I remember traveling from San Francisco to Palo Alto just to go to the Apple Store. (Pretty sure I bought some 160 gigabyte LaCie FireWire drives for my Power Mac G4.) So the new Palo Alto Store is truly “next generation.”
There is a recording studio in BC that is all made out of glass so that you can see the mountains while you work. Most recording studios are all padding and carpeted walls and floors and no windows. There are many things Apple can do to fix the sound issue at the Palo Alto store. But it should have been considered by the architects. It should have been treated as a concert hall of it is going to be a big hall full of people all the time.
I don’t see how Browett could be responsible. As you say, the new Palo Alto store was detailed 3 years ago for city council.
While Browett was in charge, I had my only bad experience at an Apple Store. For what that is worth.
It’s ironic that the company that is famous for making by far the quietest computers has also made the loudest computer store. Especially when their stores are treated as another product line, equivalent to the Mac, and are designed and engineered to those same high standards.
What I miss from the original Palo Alto store is the sign used to “breathe” at night like a sleeping Mac. Of course, new Macs no longer do that either.
The walls seems very thick. Why they are not in a sound absorbent fabric?
A short note to say thanks for your thoughtful piece about Apple Store noise levels; I hope it gets attention by The Right People at Apple. If I’d seen a petition for Apple to turn down the noise in its stores, I’d have signed it long ago.
I, for one, find it hard to believe that the same Steve Jobs who fought to keep quiet little fans out of computers wouldn’t pay attention to such an important part of a store visit user experience as the noise level and associated acoustic treatment.
I hope Apple will do a wholesale re-examination of its store designs (mainly one giant hall of glass, metal, wood and other hard, sound-reflecting surfaces – hardly anything absorptive) and soon make visiting an Apple Store a more civilized, comfortable and inviting experience, especially to help audibility and concentration for important Genius Bar visits and One-to-One tutorial sessions.
(I think I have a spectrogram or two of the noise level at my local Apple Store from my last (noisy) Genius Bar visit; I’ll see if I can scare that up and maybe post it on Flickr.)
Ugh, another person doesn’t understand decibels…
Apple’s Upper West Side NYC store is at least two years old and has a similar design and a terrible noise problem. A pic: http://www.porhomme.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/apple-store-upper-west-side-nyc-1.jpg
The high sound level is likely deliberate, because Apple Stores are meant to be entertainment as well as retail. Go to any restaurant, bar, sporting event, etc and the sound level is as high or greater. I’ve seen studies that correlate background sound with sales in restaurants (basically, decibels = dollars). Theory is that sound energizes people to eat and drink more (it drives ME to drink, at any rate). So expect no changes at Apple Stores: they are fabulously successful, no?
Isn’t this typical of our times. Many restaurants are designed to be loud and therefore seem exciting and yet normal conversation is impossible. Movie theaters crank up the volume. Clubs and concerts play music at impossible volume levels. The only thing is that in this case I believe we can depend on Apple to get it right.
The architects didn’t think of this because they don’t design stores with people in them. They design them on computers to meet aesthetic tastes.
What’s surprising here is not that it’s so loud, it’s that they didn’t learn from past stores. This is most troubling. People who fail to learn from mistakes are doomed to repeat them.
I took my wife to the flag ship glass cube in New York in early September. The service was HORRIBLE! It took 15 minutes to buy a $30 item. They were terribly under staffed. It was her first visit and I was embarrassed at the lame customer service.
It looks like they are clear and legal at the levels they are setting.
“OSHA sets legal limits on noise exposure in the workplace. These limits are based on a worker’s time weighted average over an 8 hour day. With noise, OSHA’s permissible exposure limit (PEL) is 90 dBA for all workers for an 8 hour day. “
There is a parallel field of study into making spaces more inhospitable. In the “interesting if true” category, I was told by one researcher that in the early days McDonalds deliberately made the lights garish, the plastic furniture slightly uncomfortable, the tile and glass surfaces noisily reflective (albeit easier to clean). The idea was to achieve truly “fast food,” and to get customers into and out of the stores as quickly as possible. A variation of this is to blare classical music outside of convenience stores to keep teen-agers from loitering there.
And by the way, U.S. Special Forces have been known to use dune buggies equipped with active noise cancellation. In another “interesting if true” report, pre-Iraq invasion, a SEAL team drove past a Republican Guard encampment inside Iraq in their weaponized dune buggies without being heard.
@Jack Quattlebaum: Thanks, interesting data. I went and checked http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meyer_Sound_Laboratories and http://www.meyersound.com/products/constellation/
As you wrote, the Constellation product looks like a possible solution.
@ Ray: Yes, you could even add the (purported) $20+ settlement for swiping the Swiss Railway clock design http://j.mp/PPG686. Ironic for a company that sues others for copying their look-and-feel. One might ask who, in management, actively consented or just let it happen by not paying attention.
Then we have the UK court-mandated apology where local Apple people tried to game the apology, make it tricky/snarky and ended up angering the judge who ordered a redo, and for Apple to pay Samsung’s legal fees http://j.mp/SfWuLw. Unwise, ungracious, unmanaged.
@ Hamranhansenhansen and @Doug Grinbergs: Yes, ironic for the company where Jobs fought agains noisy fans. BTW, to be “fair and balanced”, the latest Retina MacBook Pros do have very quiet fans — as claimed when they were introduced. In my personal experience, significantly quieter than a MacBook Air when struggling with Apple Mail (that’s for another Monday Note).
@ John: You write “Ugh, another person doesn’t understand decibels…” I’d be grateful to correct whatever mistake I made. Please let us know.
Regardless of the decibel readings, if many people perceive it to be too loud, it is. Likely reasons are that -
- an Apple decision maker dismissed warnings from staff and architects that it would be too loud, and pushed through aesthetic decisions over practical ones.
- and/or they want to increase turnover, like McDonalds, because people loiter too long. They want people to linger, but not too much.
- and/or Apple 20-something employees, with good hearing, are making decisions, not 40+somethings with deteriorating hearing.
@Fritzlan: Allow me to make a suggestion. A while ago, I had a bad experience at the Palo Alto store. Asking to see the manager in charge, they have several shifts during the day, solved the problem. To be fair, the poor Genius involved was just following a boneheaded company rule. The “pit boss” found a way around it.
@ John A Frye: The OSHA regulation in its full glory: http://j.mp/W3K4b6
The SPL recording equipment, both static and on employee shoulders could be part of an OSHA-mandated monitoring program.
@Several commenters: You’re right, retail outlets don’t like to sound like libraries. A _good_ level of noise is equated with activity, success. You don’t want to sound like a library, or a funeral parlor. And there is too much for a good thing.
On this, opinions differ. See this “noisy” Gizmodo title: The New Palo Alto Apple Store Isn’t Too Loud You Whiny Morons http://j.mp/PPJAHD
@ Vincent: Some malls pipe classical music to shoo adolescent loiterers…
Jean-Louis: I always wonder how you will go about spewing your venom on Apple. Get over it. Apple ‘portable’ was their biggest failure ever. But you should move on now, it would be far healthier than just going to a quieter place.
I have to admit, you have your formula down pat. Start out sounding rational, and saying some nice things, then creating a problem out of nothing. If the sound bothers you, why go to the store at all? You can buy online and have it delivered.
No surprise you got bad service. They probably know your history with the company!
@ Brian: Thanks for the drubbing, it’s good for the soul.
Bad service: once in 10 years, the rest very pleasant.
Venom: read the Monday Note archive, I’m critical at times and, at others complimentary. Some people actually think I like Apple too much.
The portable: you’re right, it was too big and heavy. If you broaden your field of view, you’ll see that between 1985 and 1990 the engineering team also put out a good number of successful products that got the Mac out of the ditch.
I think we should avoid ad hominem attacks here but I respect your right to do so. I’d prefer we criticize ideas as opposed to second-guessing motive — something I won’t do about your comment.
It’s one thing to say you want the store to sound “lively”, which is a good thing. Another thing entirely if the noise gets to a level where people start feeling uncomfortable, or worse yet, that could be cumulatively harmful to workers that have to spend all day – every day in there. As an architect who is involved in restaurant projects, the concerns about overly high background sound levels are the same. And as a fan of Apple products and their retail stores, I can imagine that Apple wouldn’t really want to hang a bunch of sound absorptive panels all over their otherwise pristine wall surfaces or from the glass ceiling members.
I don’t think high tech active noise canceling systems are the best way to go. Excellent results can be achieved much more passively and even cost effectively by applying sound absorption panels to the undersides of the display tables. Sound bounces off the floor to the undersides of the tables and back out again into the space, adding to the cacophony, but if the panels are discretely in place under the tables, those sound waves get captured.
And as I look at the front of my Mac Pro tower, I can imagine rectangular perforated aluminum panels of that same industrial look installed in the upper portions of the side walls, and behind those panels could be open “vaults” that are the same depth as those thick walls, and sound absorptive panels could be applied to the backsides of those voids. None of this requires microphones or electricity to do the job. They can add as much or as little of it as they need to temper the reflective noise down to acceptable levels but still have some “liveliness” if they want it.
@ArchtMig: Thanks for adding a practicing professional’s view.
I refrained from making suggestions in the MN. I’ll do it here. Short of giving the Palo Alto store the look of Texas bordello, I thought the following could be done.
Roll in (grey, not red) high-grade hotel carpet on the floor.
Under the guise of Xmas decoration, stretch two horizontal layers of sheer off-white veil, one foot apart, using the existing metal rods, close to the “parabolic sound mirror”.
Hang creations by Mac and iOS artists up on the blank walls, mounted on sound-absorbing material, all under the guise, perhaps genuine of featuring Apple-inspired art…
Don’t laugh, I’m trying
More importantly, don’t you think that the design is excessive? It feels like a religious monument to apple devices. I am wondering when a good chunk of apple’s customers are finally going to say, “$120/month for a phone is too much. And the phone only works for two years. And I have to buy a data plan for my iPad which only works for two years? It just seems like the apple pundits (gruber et al) don’t understand that a lot of customers want a phone that works at areeasonable price and works for a while. Just like a great Toyota Camry or a Honda accord. Not everyone needs a BMW/Mercedes handset.
@SamSam, should EVERY smartphone owner, Android and others say: “$120/month for a phone is too much. And the phone only works for two years. And I have to buy a data plan for my iPad which only works for two years? Last I checked, the price of the plans are the same, whether it be iOS, Android or others.
I agree completely! This store is way too loud. As a committed buyer of Apple products, (ie. iPad, iPhone, iPod, ect.) I love the store and I get that they are trying to be ‘hip’ and draw in crowds. But once you are in, it’s very overwhelming. That being said, I’ve NEVER had a bad experience in an actual Apple store. I choose these over any reseller like Best Buy or Target because the staff is friendly, knowledgeable and surprisingly honest. The fact that they are actively researching sound levels has to stand for something.
Thanks for sharing!
PROS: Appears to give a tighter seal than other connectors I’ve seen.
When I originally commented I clicked the “Notify me when new comments are added” checkbox and now each time a comment is added I
get four emails with the same comment. Is there any way
you can remove people from that service? Cheers!
wow amazing apple is no words to explain about it
no words to comment my friend if it says Apple the world no 1 and amazing brand
Apple stores products display is amzing and it has its own unique features… well why dont you go and try your self it worth to go
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