{"id":1019958,"date":"2026-08-24T00:02:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T00:02:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1019958\/"},"modified":"2026-08-24T00:02:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T00:02:14","slug":"that-weird-other-section-in-apple-stores-is-reportedly-being-revamped-for-a-new-line-of-home-products","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1019958\/","title":{"rendered":"That Weird ‘Other’ Section in Apple Stores Is Reportedly Being Revamped for a New Line of Home Products"},"content":{"rendered":"

If I\u2019m in an Apple Store, I have two modes: A) touch everything, time-killing mode, meaning I\u2019ll be at the big tables poking some iPads, or B) find-the-dongle-fast mode, meaning I\u2019ll be in the weird \u201cOther\u201d section looking stressed out. Apple is reportedly making changes to the no man\u2019s land section of the store where my dongles live, and it\u2019s apparently because the company needs to introduce the world to its new line of HomePod products.<\/p>\n

This is yet another rumor from Bloomberg\u2019s rumor man Mark Gurman<\/a>, who informs me that the section or sections in question\u2014typically the outer edge along the far walls\u2014are called Avenues. iPhones are center stage, and would never be relegated to the Avenues. Beats headphones and Apple TVs are on the Avenues, as are the weird, third-party products\u2014historically things like car vent mounts<\/a> for iPhones and limited edition Play-Doh sets<\/a>, although the formal \u201cAvenues\u201d label apparently only applies to newer stores.<\/p>\n

Gurman says large scale changes are happening in the Avenues, and the shift signals the arrival of long-rumored Siri-powered HomePod products<\/a>. \u201cB-but, HomePod products are already on the Avenues,\u201d I hear you saying. Yes, but the new Avenues are supposedly going to feature a home hub with a display, which deserves special consideration.<\/p>\n

The rumored hub in question<\/a> is expected to run a mobile-style OS on a 7-inch screen, and will interface with your smart appliances and other IoT doohickeys like your doorbell camera. It may also have custom interactions with different members of the household triggered by facial recognition, if you\u2019re into that sort of thing.<\/p>\n

According to Gurman, \u201cToday\u2019s store layouts aren\u2019t particularly well suited to demonstrating such a product.\u201d So if you\u2019re going into the Apple Store to buy a dongle or some Play-Doh\u2014or even if you\u2019re there to drop major coin on a MacBook Pro\u2014the new home hub products on display in the Avenues zone will, presumably, grab your attention. Apple will want to present them in the form of an interactive and introductory marketing experience. After all, if you don\u2019t know what something even is, how can you want to buy it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If I\u2019m in an Apple Store, I have two modes: A) touch everything, time-killing mode, meaning I\u2019ll be…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1019959,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7],"tags":[239,408152,118516,158,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-1019958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-apple","tag-apple-stores","tag-homepod","tag-technology","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117147556147782022","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1019958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1019959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1019958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1019958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1019958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}