I was in line at 7 a.m. this morning. I'm guessing I was around the 30th person in line. As usual, when you go to something like this you meet some rather interesting people. This was no exception.<br><br>The fun part was a fellow next to me in line brought his iBook, well after a few minutes of trading stories, we discovered that we could hook up to the store's Airport network. After surfing the web a bit, we found the Genius Bar's printer. His main interest was asking a few questions, so he typed everything out and printed it before we were allowed in.<br><br>I would venture to guess that by the time I left the store, there were 400 or so people in line with another 75-100 people already in the store. I wasn't the first in the store but I was the first at the check out, mostly accessories for my iBook and a box of recordable DVDs. I did purchase an extra battery for my iBook, the price was Apple's list of $129. That sure beats CompUSA's price of $159.99 that I looked at yesterday! Lots of people were buying notebooks, several iBooks and a few G4 PowerBooks were stacked up waiting to be paid for.<br><br>Definitely worth going in to one of these stores if you have a chance. <br><br>

vlad, I'd agree... these stores make for a truly enjoyable Apple shopping experience. If you've ever ventured into the odd Best Buy, or other non-mac store, on the off chance that they "might" carry something for your Macintosh, you'll really enjoy going to an Apple Store... <br><br>John<br><br>

I finally made it to the Mall of America store for the first time yesterday. My girlfriend remarked on how the store uses light and dark ... when you walk in the dark checkout counter is right in front of you, so you're naturally drawn toward the bright product displays along the sides. Then you browse through the dark software shelves on your way out.<br><br>It wasn't too crowded, about as much as any other store there was on a Saturday. Lots of workers ... the worker-to-customer ratio seemed almost 1:1 at times. Mostly I liked the software selection ... much better than in CompUSA.<br><br>I was surprised to see the Genius Bar was stuck in the far back corner ... it was pretty dead back there. I guess I had envisioned it as some kind of Mac "social hub" ... oh well.<br><br>