It’s out with fitness and in with the tech next year at Knightsbridge, the super-swanky and uber-atas along Orchard Road. Nope, it’s not another Challenger store opening — it’ll be Singapore’s first ever official Apple store right in the heart of the shopping district.
Various media reports had Apple fanboys and fangirls going wild when they released an email sent by gym chain Pure Fitness to their patrons saying that they’ll be closing their Knightsbridge outlet on Dec 15. The reason? They (along with other tenants in the building) will be handing back their space to the landlord to make way for an Apple store later in 2016.
Exciting news to many, but not so for the dozens of Apple Authorised resellers such as nübox, EpiCentre and iStudio, who may or may not be asked to shutter their stores once the true OG appears in the neighbourhood. We’re also glad that there’ll finally be a proper Genius Bar to help us with tech support and repairwork because the current roster of Apple Authorised Service Providers just plain suck ass and try to rip us off every frickin’ time.
It’s also odd that it took so long for a real Apple Store to open here, considering Singapore’s reputation as a tech and shopping hub and whatnot. The tech giant already has four outposts in Hong Kong for quite some time, but Singapore never had any proper Apple love — or at least until 2016. We’ve reached out to Apple representatives in Singapore for more details.
Photo: matt buchanan via Flickr
