According to a design company, CB Engineers, the upcoming Philippine Stock Exchange building in Fort Bonifacio, Taguig City will also house the very first Apple Store in the country.
The ground floor retail section of the new PSE is said to include the Apple Store, Manila:
CB Engineers was selected by the Ayala Development Group to provide consulting services as the sustainability consultant and commissioning agent for the new Philippine Stock Exchange Office Building.
The project is a new 650,000-sq.ft. high rise office tower complex located in Bonifacio Global City, a business district of Metro Manila in the Philippines. The project is named for its anchor tenant the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) although the PSE will be occupying only about 108,000 sf or 15% of the total projected floor area. The project is being designed as a LEED Gold, Class A office space (referred to as Triple A Office Space in Manila) and will seek high profile tenants such as headquarters of large multinationals, with the retail section housing the Apple Store, Manila as the anchor tenant. To match the projects ambitious design goals, the Ownership Group has insisted on retaining a world class design team which includes Skidmore Owings & Merrill, SOM; EDAW and CB Engineers along with qualified local architects and engineers as the designers or record.
If this is really true, it makes sense since Apple already has the Online Store in the Philippines and may want to have better presence in the metro. The Fort is an ideal spot to have one but that would surely dampen the enthusiasm of the current iStudio (an Apple Premium Reseller) store owner at the Boni High Street.
No additional details were stated but I’m sure this is gonna piss off Apple that their secret has leaked out {source, via}.
This is cool. Will eagerly await this.
Not true guys… sources say it will not happen
@abe, sorry… i tought you were speaking about the Genius Bar in iTunes hehe. Well, that is the only upside with this but still the price for that service will be much higher here. Hmmm, how much do those tech earn? hehe…
**grr hehe can’t even type correctly: @abe, genius bar? hehe. For I know that thing is still pretty useless in Manila.. unless a full pledge online store arrives..
@dido, most of the shops in Manila do hold seminars. That is why some of them have a room allocated for that! like the one in Podium. When OSX leopard was announced I think it was iStudio or PowerMac in Bonifacio High Street that hold a seminar for that.
@abe, genius bar? hehe. For I know that thing is still use in Manila.. unless a full pledge online store arrives..
wow astig yung apple store sa pinas. ayus :)
why are you complaining?
music is free here. wake up.
long live the music and movie pirate industry!
if you’ve been to an apple store in other countries, one free service they offer (right inside their store) is a lecture/demo or sometimes a seminar (for free). I doubt if any of the iStudio or PowerMac stores will ever offer this!
and I will not buy anything from any iStudio or PowerMac stores (they are very expensive). I’d rather have my purchases bought online.
a lot of consumers are starting to see apple for what they really are, overpriced computers that have the same specs as a decent pc for almost half the price. baka akala nila maloloko nila mga filipino. wala kaming pera kaya di nyo kami maloloko! :P
I think the difference will be on the repair and the support section of the apple product, because when last time I went to powermac at greenbelt 3 to have a repair on my MacBook Pro, they told me that it would take a month just to repair my hard drive cause the parts are not available here locally they have to ship it to Singapore and then there they would be repairing it…
Genius bar? Magkano kaya siswelduhin nang mga Genius.
@vance, one important thing – Genius Bar.
very nice concept!
Sorry Correction: Come ON! iStudio, PowerMac, iGig, etc.. has the same stuff that Apple store offers plus some of this 3rd party stores have Monthly seminars, which I don’t think Apple store does. If Apple will sell the products with the same price as the US one then that will be good but we know that won’t happen!
Here is my question, what does an official Apple Store brings new on the table that all the 3rd party doesn’t?
Come ON! iStudio, PowerMac, iGig, etc.. has the same stuff that Apple store offers plus some of this 3rd party stores have Monthly seminars, which I don’t think Apple store doesn’t have. If Apple will sell the products with the same price as the US one then that will be good but we know that won’t happen!
I will be more excited if they announced a full pledge iTunes Store in Manila… I personally haven’t found a way to purchase music online from any American based site like Walmart, Amazon or iTunes.
Altough there is a way to purchase music or movies through itunes by buying Gift Certs in ebay! I still want the previlege to spend as little as 0.99 c per song that paying 65USD for a 200USD itubes Cert.
There are several iStores in Cebu. Are there any different?
Well at least iPod owners would have somewhere safe to go for repairs to their devices.
I mean, what’s it for? We don’t have the spending power. And Apple products are more expensive here compared to HK and Singapore.
Yeah, right.
With the presence of an Apple store in Manila, Philippines, does this also give the Philippines the opportunity to have REAL access in the iTunes store? Will we be given the power to download and pay for content that we’ve always wanted in iTunes?
I believe the Philippines has become a big market for all things Apple or they won’t be investing so much money in setting up an Apple store here.
How iStudio and the Apple store will co-exist is something we need to see.
Until then…