Apple’s newest UK retail store has been shrouded in a red curtain to hide completion of work at the Covent Garden location in central London.
According to the planning application, the new store will occupy two stories in a restored listed building facing Covent Garden’s famous market halls. ifoAppleStore says the store will open before the end of July.
The curtain is actually a printed plastic film laid over plywood, which Apple has also used prior to the recent openings in Paris and Shanghai.
Despite the opening of the Shanghai store, the second in China, Apple is missing out an opportunity to expand in the world’s most populous country, according to the chairman of local PC maker Lenovo.
“We are lucky Steve Jobs has such a bad temper and doesn’t care about China,” Lui Chunazhi told the Financial Times. “If Apple were to spend the same effort on the Chinese consumer as we do, we would be in trouble.”
Chunazhi’s admiration for Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, and the iPhone isn’t shared by Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata.
Iwata said that Nintendo is “absolutely not thinking” of developing games for devices other than its own DS handheld and Wii console.
“Nintendo’s software and hardware are the same thing,” he told investors. ”Other companies don’t share Nintendo’s values or traditions when it comes to creating devices.”
