Apple is ready to open its first retail store next week in Turkey, with a grand opening gala that may feature Apple CEO Tim Cook and Turkish President Abdullah Gül. Located in Istanbul's Zorlu Center Shopping Center, the retail store will open at 10:00 AM on Saturday, April 5, 2014, reports Elma Dergisi.
The Turkish store occupies approximately 20,000 square feet in the heart of Istanbul's popular, multi-use shopping center. The Zorlu Center store is thought to feature a cubic glass ceiling, glass sides and in-store services such as a dedicated "Family Room" floor and dual Genius Bars, reports 9to5Mac. The structure is currently hidden behind barricades until its official debut.
This Zorlu Center store is the first of several retail stores planned for Turkey as Apple makes inroads into this new market. Apple also met with Turkish government officials to equip Turkish school children with 10.6 million tablets in a new education initiative to bring cutting-edge technology into schools.
Though negotiations appeared to be favorable for Apple, this bid eventually was awarded to Turkish company Telpa, which is providing tablets from General Mobile, a Turkish-owned company operating out of the United States.
Friday October 30, 2026 3:20 pm PDT by Joe Rossignol
In a memo shared with Apple Stores and Apple Authorized Service Providers this week, and later obtained by MacRumors, Apple provided technicians with guidance on how to diagnose and address the iPhone Duo's inner display cracking issue.
If a customer reports the issue, Apple advised technicians to inspect the iPhone Duo and repair or replace it in accordance with their standard procedures....
Thursday October 29, 2026 1:47 pm PDT by Joe Rossignol
While the new iPad mini has an OLED display, the device does not support ProMotion, meaning the display's refresh rate is limited to 60Hz instead of 120Hz.
ProMotion support would have allowed for the iPad mini's refresh rate to automatically adjust from 10Hz to 120Hz depending on the content being displayed, but evidently Apple has kept the feature exclusive to the iPad Pro among iPad...
Thursday October 29, 2026 11:52 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
In the U.S. and most other countries, Apple's website shows the new iPad mini being held by pinched fingers, but this is not the case in South Korea.
The new iPad mini shown with pinched fingers on Apple's website in the U.S.
On its South Korean website, Apple simply shows an image of the iPad mini on its own.
The new iPad mini shown without pinched fingers on Apple's website in South Korea ...
Coloured dots forming the top quarter of the Apple logo on the banner represents the iconic Bosphorus bridge's lights. The bridge connects Europe to Asia. Istanbul literally is a city located in both Europe and Asia. Here's a photo of the bridge.
Also Apple is said to open 4 more stores in Turkey by the end of 2015. One, located in the Asian side of Istanbul was photographed under construction, in a mall called "Akasya".
I'm pretty excited about this cause it means decent Apple customer service, Apple care, international guarantee and probably product launches simultaneously with the world. Up until now it has always been US, UK, Germany, France launch, then second tier country launch, then 3rd and then Turkey. If iPhones were launched early-Sep, it would officially arrive to Turkey mid-november. If this could move us up to at least 2nd tier it would be amazing.
[politics]
As a side note; I'm super annoyed and angry about the Turkish government's unacceptable demonisation of social media and I hope they'll get the answer on this Sunday's elections. Most of the people can still connect to Twitter and youtube just by changing their DNSs anyways but this attitude is non-democratic and unacceptable. In my eyes, the prime-minister is not legitimate anymore because he is literally above the law. [/politics]
If I were Apple, I would hold off the opening until the free internet speech "issue" is resolved and the government comes to its senses. Apple shouldn't turn a blind eye to these matters.
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