I heard a rumour that the Fountain Gate store is practically bleeding money. Hardly any sales and even genius bar throughput is a fraction of the other stores in Melbourne. From the three times I’ve been there, I’d agree. Even on a weekend, the store isn’t packed, like say, Highpoint, which on a weekend is sardineville and has a fully booked genius bar for days.
Fountain Gate is enormous though.
Chadstone is quite busy too.
Highpoint is easily the most convenient for me to get to for me and every time I’ve been there the store has been busy.
I’ve been to chadstone a few times (mostly before Highpoint opened) and that was generally busy too.
It surprises me that people are saying the other Melbourne Apple stores aren’t also busy.
Chadstone is tiny compared to the others, it needs to be double the size. I’ve never been to Fountain Gate but what @decryption says doesn’t surprise me. A store at Eastland would be great considering the entire centre is now surprisingly classy, but it may not end up being particularly busy.
I think whatever retail move Apple makes next in Australia will be a very good indicator of the general “health” of the company.
We may well see a Microsoft store in the CBD before an Apple Store.
Just back from checking out “St Collins Lane” which opened today.
Lots of shops still not open. Two things to note: Basement isn’t open, and escalators etc are closed off with big black sheets, and that space would be huge. Also, black curtains upstairs on the third level.
Otherwise it’s just another shopping centre that will have lots of empty shops in a couple of years time 
EDIT Mysterious Basement https://www.instagram.com/p/BFSpNiyRd4r/
Third Level Black Curtains. I’d imagine the 3rd Level might end up being more restaurants though, as there’s already a Burger joint up there. https://www.instagram.com/p/BFSpOd5Rd4u/
There’s an article in today’s paper which talks about Grollo acquiring the Showgirls Bar 20 building on King St to “bring them a step closer to transforming the notorious King Street precinct into an upmarket retail centre”.
I read recently about speculation of an Apple Store at the base of the Rialto, but I think it’s possibly too far from the main retail area.
mmmmm, probably - but, could be classy enough. I’ll cross my fingers, hah
The whole of Eastland begs to have a store. In fact everytime I go there now, its hard to tell it used to be a pretty feral shopping centre not too long ago.
Agreed, Eastland is prime for one. I prefer going there over the city now, it has all the big name stores, bar one.
There was a very big, empty store next to H&M, this would be the prime spot for an Apple Store, and it’s exactly the right size. I haven’t been out there for a few weeks so I don’t know what the go is now.
Quick check shows it’s still empty, but it’s pretty big, even for an Apple Store.
Hm. Someone who knows someone who knows something just told me that they heard that Apple might open a store at… wait for it… Fed Square. This makes no sense to me at all but, stranger things have happened. I’m just not sure exactly where it would go.
Apple just announced that Apple Pay is now available in Switzerland (Visa and MasterCard).
Still waiting for CBA/MasterCard to allow Apple Pay in Australia.
That’s crazy talk.
Although if we’re going with crazy… Fifth Avenue-style glass cube, please. Anyone know what’s under Fed Square?
Well it’s over the top or railway lines. They aren’t moving for anyone. There are two spaces below ground however where there used to be old railway platforms, one is taken up by A Tourism Information Centre (it’s pretty big… but I still don’t think it’s big enough for an Apple Store). There’s another one which is part of ACMI. I don’t see either of those tenants moving out any time soon, if ever. But hey, crazier things have happened.
Personally I’m not sure I’d want to buy expensive Apple Gear and then walk walk acorss the road to Flinders Street Station and get robbed by drug addicts 
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Yes, train lines.
Dead bodies.
Hm another glimmer of hope. They’ve started work on the Emirates Building. This is prime Collins location, and looks to be the perfect size. The only weird things is there would need to be an allowance for a separate lift lobby for the building above, and also the arcade through to the back of the building which goes out to Flinders Lane.
Mr Cini said electronics giant Apple, which has spent years searching for a large-floor-area store in Melbourne, was considered. “It doesn’t suit us,” he said.
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The Brisbane CBD store is within 50metres of underground parking in the David Jones Building, the Winter Garden building and Myers and is 100metres directly from the train station. It’s hardly independent of the shops. Not sure if you’ve spent any significant time in Brisbane, but access is not an issue for the Brisbane CBD store.
The lift/lobby arrangement was also arranged as part of the development approval along with a redevelopment of the outside facade of the MacArthur Chambers for it to be approved by the council in Brisbane. It’s not particularly unusual, it would be more unusual to have more than one flagship store in Australia though after what they spent on developing the MacArthur chambers. You don’t generally see more than one Apple store in the order of a Grand Central, Paris, or Regent Street in a country, in terms of architectural magnificence.
It’s more likely you’ll get another shopping mall style store.
There was a Next Byte at Melbourne University. I bought my iMac and iPhone 5 there.
Then they closed and some staff went to Elizabeth St. Then it closed. Then all Next Byte stores closed.
Maybe a Melbourne CBD store will just never happen. I’m probably more likely to still go to Highpoint or Doncaster.