Apple’s website went out for a brief period late Tuesday, leading to speculation that the company might launch new products.
Not this time, however – when the site came back up it had a new “Store” tab in the top left corner.
As MacRumors pointed this out, Apple’s website had a “Store” tab a few years ago, but it was removed in a redesign. Now, however, the store tab leads to a fundamentally redesigned store front that lists all the important Apple product categories, but also contains an overview of offers and new products as well as a few support links and documents.
Clicking on a specific product category will bring up a page where you can scroll horizontally through cards with the main subcategories, similar to what you would do in the Apple Store app on iOS. Try browsing it on a phone and you’ll see what I mean.
Finally, if you choose a specific sub-category, you will end up with a website of the product that appears to be identical, or at least quite similar, to what it looked like before the redesign.
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Such redesigns are best judged when you are actually buying a product, but my gut feeling is that this is a good change. Having your own “Store” area, in which you can find your way through product categories, can sometimes be better than navigating the Apple product pages.
In addition, the new store offers a lot of content to help you decide what you want, either through various support documents or one-to-one sessions with Apple employees. There’s nothing really new here, mind you, but it’s nice to have everything in one place.