In June 2015 it was reported that Apple would renovate its iconic Fifth Avenue retail store, temporarily relocating its operations to the vacated FAO Schwarz toy store in the General Motors Building. A MacRumors reader spotted a new sign in front of the iconic store that reveals the relocation will happen on January 20.
FAO Schwarz vacated its location in the General Motors Building in July 2015 due to the rising cost of rent. The space is just a couple feet away from the iconic glass cube, making the relocation largely seamless for frequent customers of the Fifth Avenue store.
Apple's Fifth Avenue store and the former FAO Schwarz space, far right (Flickr)
While the extent of the renovations at the Fifth Avenue store are unknown, the company has been expanding or relocating a number of its older stores to accommodate increased foot traffic. The Fifth Avenue location was last renovated in 2011, when larger, more seamless panes of glass were installed. The renovation was completed in November 2011.
Ahead of the closure, the store will have reduced hours of 6:00 a.m. to 11:59 p.m. on January 16-18. The location is usually open on a 24 hour, 365 day basis.
Apple plans to cut production of the iPhone Air amid underwhelming sales performance, Japan's Mizuho Securities believes (via The Elec).
The Japanese investment banking and securities firm claims that the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are seeing higher sales than their predecessors during the same period last year, while the standard iPhone 17 is a major success, performing...
Saturday October 18, 2025 11:00 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
iOS 26 was released last month, but the software train never stops, and iOS 26.1 beta testing is already underway. So far, iOS 26.1 makes both Apple Intelligence and Live Translation on compatible AirPods available in additional languages, and it includes some other minor changes across the Apple Music, Calendar, Photos, Clock, and Safari apps.
More features and changes will follow in future ...
Friday October 17, 2025 7:35 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple's software engineers continue to internally test iOS 26.0.2, according to MacRumors logs, which have been a reliable indicator of upcoming iOS versions.
iOS 26.0.2 will be a minor update that addresses bugs and/or security vulnerabilities, but we do not know any specific details yet.
The update will likely be released by the end of next week.
Last month, Apple released iOS 26.0.1,...
Thursday October 16, 2025 9:13 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro with its next-generation M5 chip, but previous rumors have indicated that the company still plans to announce at least a few additional products before the end of the year.
The following Apple products have at one point been rumored to be updated in 2025, although it is unclear if the timeframe for any of them has...
Thursday October 16, 2025 8:31 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with an M5 chip, and there are two key storage-related upgrades beyond that chip bump.
First, Apple says the new 14-inch MacBook Pro offers up to 2× faster SSD performance than the equivalent previous-generation model, so read and write speeds should get a significant boost. Apple says it is using "the latest storage technology," ...
Sunday October 19, 2025 7:39 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
iOS 26.4 is expected to introduce a revamped version of Siri powered by Apple Intelligence, but not everyone is satisfied with how well it works.
In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said some of Apple's software engineers have "concerns" about the overhauled Siri's performance. However, he did not provide any specific details about the shortcomings.
iOS 26.4 will...
Saturday October 18, 2025 10:57 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
While the new iPad Pro's headline feature is the M5 chip, the device has some other changes, including N1 and C1X chips, faster storage speeds, and more.
With the M5 chip, the new iPad Pro has up to a 20% faster CPU and up to a 40% faster GPU compared to the previous model with the M4 chip, according to Geekbench 6 results. Keep in mind that 256GB and 512GB configurations have a 9-core CPU,...
Thursday October 16, 2025 3:57 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Apple plans to launch MacBook Air models equipped with the new M5 chip in spring 2026, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Apple is also working on M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pro models that will come early in the year.
Neither the MacBook Pro models nor the MacBook Air models are expected to get design changes, with Apple focusing on simple chip upgrades. In the case of the MacBook Pro, a m...
Friday October 17, 2025 7:10 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
The first alleged benchmark result for the M5 chip in the new 14-inch MacBook Pro has surfaced, allowing for some performance comparisons.
Based on a single unconfirmed result uploaded to the Geekbench 6 database today, the M5 chip has pulled off an impressive feat. Specifically, the chip achieved a score of 4,263 for single-core CPU performance, which is the highest single-core score that...
Too many clever words on that sign when a simple arrow would've sufficed (especially considering the number of non-English-speaking tourists that must visit that iconic store)
Perfect example for anyone new to Macrumors as far as what to expect in the forums. People will criticize Apple over the most ridiculous things and rarely is anyone happy.
I worked in that store from 2010-2011. Even back then, the traffic and crowding was unbelievable. Each week, the FDNY would send a fire inspector to see if there were more people than was safe, in case a fire broke out. And each week, they were far over the legal limit. Apple didn't give a ****; they paid the fine each week.
I know Wall Street and the myriad Apple-haterz continue to claim Apple is going out of business quite soon but these sort of things Apple is doing isn't quite indicative of a company going out of business. A company wouldn't keep renovating old stores and adding new stores at this rate. You can tell how Sears, J.C. Penney and Macys are having a financial crisis as they sell off stores and dump employees. Where is that happening at Apple. It's true I don't really know if Apple is having a financial crisis but spending more money on expansion wouldn't make any sense if they did have a crisis. So what is it that Wall Street knows that I don't? Of course, I also don't understand why Yahoo's share price continues to rise while the company's fundamentals are quite crappy. Yahoo has an EPS of -5.1 and yet the stock has risen over 25% this past year. Apple has an EPS of about 8.3 and the stock has risen just 3% in 2016. I just don't get it. There are so many mixed signals with Apple so it's hard to tell who's telling the truth about the company. If Apple were in financial trouble they shouldn't be doing any renovations or expansion.
Apple isn't going out of business, nor are they anywhere even remotely close to what it would take for them to shut down. That is something said by the 1-5% of the tech population that come on these sites and forums because they are angry the MacBook, iMac or iPhone didn't have the feature or specs they wanted or because they prefer another brand product and want to make Apple seem like they are in trouble. On a general consumer level, Apple is doing just fine.
"Apple’s Fifth Avenue emporium probably has annual sales of more than $350 million, said Jeffrey Roseman, executive vice president of real- estate broker Newmark Knight Frank Retail. The location is 10,000 square feet, putting its sales per square foot at a minimum of $35,000, based on Roseman’s estimate.
Those sales trump tony jewelry sellers along the famed street — currently earning about twice as much: Tiffany & Co. rakes in just $18,000 per square foot, Harry Winston between $12,000 – $13,000."
Abercrombie pays annual rent of $12.5 million for a 25,000 square foot shop on Fifth Avenue. Apple probably pays more per square foot for its more prime location but regardless they are turning a serious profit in a location with incredible marketing value.