Apple opens big store with pomp
SAN FRANCISCO, California (Reuters) -- How do you spend your 40th birthday and a sunny Saturday after a week of rain?
For Ulan McKnight, it's being the first customer to enter Apple Computer Inc.'s flagship San Francisco store -- after waiting two nights outside the entrance and braving the rain.
McKnight, who turned 40 Saturday, was joined by hundreds of others who wrapped around a city block in the city's prime shopping district for the opening of Apple's two-story store, the computer maker's fifth major store worldwide.
The glitzy store opening was kicked off with loud music and a ribbon-cutting with Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.
The store, which joins major Apple stores in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Tokyo, was a long time coming for the Silicon Valley company which helped trigger the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with its Apple II.
The opening of the store, which features an all-glass staircase, comes at a time of robust sales of Apple's popular iPod digital music player and PowerBook notebook computers and wide popularity of Apple's retail stores which first opened in May 2001.
Christine Weil, an Apple spokeswoman, said plans to build the San Francisco store were in the works for about four years but were delayed until Apple found a location near San Francisco's Union Square, the city's upscale retail district.
Cupertino, California-based Apple has 76 retail stores which allow customers to try out Apple products.
Weil said no cost estimates were available on how much the San Francisco store cost to build.
Apple is best known for its Macintosh computer, popular among graphics and creative professionals as an alternative to personal computers that run on Windows operating software from industry leader Microsoft Corp.
For McKnight, a self-proclaimed "Mac-head," waiting in line for two days was his way of showing his appreciation to Apple for products that he says have improved his life.
The computer store-owner ended up spending $250 on one of the few hundred so-called Lucky Bags, filled with various Apple products, sold by the company Saturday.
The tab adds to the roughly $100,000 McKnight estimates he has spent on Apple products for himself since buying his first Apple product more than 20 years ago.
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