Opinion: Apple's Regent Street store shows it's becoming boring to the core

A lot of potted trees, views from front to back and some backlit ceiling panels. Oh yes, and you can sit on the lips of the tree planters. Still not worked out where you are? It has to be an Apple store in a Dubai mall, right?

Well, actually, no. Welcome to the revamped Apple store on Regent Street, which is the big sister of what has been on view in the emirate for some time. Please excuse me while I commit design sacrilege and suppress a yawn.

The trouble with Apple is it’s broadly the same everywhere and the happy, smiley people waiting to sell you winsome products (most of which look the same, except that they’re different, apparently) run the risk of making you feel that you’re being approached by a evangelical missionary.

Consistency, we are told, is what good store design, once you reach a certain size, is all about.

Maybe so, but most who can afford merchandise from this brand-cum-retailer are probably sufficiently well-travelled to be aware of the appearance of multiple Apple stores and will inevitably compare and contrast. But there’s little point in doing so, as what’s on view on Regent Street will gradually be replicated across the company’s empire.

In the same way as reviews of its new products frequently raise the question of whether what has been done is just repackaging rather than barrier-busting, its stores tend to be iterations on a theme. The architecture may differ externally, but within there will be a real sense not just of familiarity, but perhaps mild boredom.

How can this be avoided? In most instances Apple stores are about as good as it gets when it comes to attention to store and product design detail, but even this can pall. The Regent Street store is certainly different from what went before, but the brand’s heritage is so strong that it feels as if not much has changed.

Redesign shouldn’t be a case of throwing out the baby with the bathwater, but there is surely more to consumer tech life than severe wooden tables and white surrounds. Or am I just being curmudgeonly?