Few retailers command the sort of brand loyalty that leads customers to create online communities around their products - let alone their stores. Apple, of course, has a cult following, with specialist sites pouring over every vague patent application and rumours from the suppliers in Asia of the latest products to come from the notoriously secretive electronics company.

Even its retail arm has a specialist site monitoring its every move. Over the past few weeks, the IfoAppleStore blog, run from California, has reported live from the opening of the new
Paris store in the Carrousel du Louvre, provided updates on forthcoming stores in New York and taken a predictably partisan swipe at the uncanny familiarity of Microsoft’s new retail offering.

The blog notes things most customers would overlook, such as the replacement of third-party portable point-of-sale devices with a new system using Apple’s iPod Touch, with a custom attachment to swipe credit cards, scan barcodes and control cash drawers.

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