I’ve written a number of times about the new Apple store about to open in our town here in the West Country of England. While looking out for local information on an opening date, the following email arrived for me this morning from Apple :

If you look at it carefully, you’ll see it’s precisely geo-targeted. There’s no mention of a town or city, just the shopping complex : Princesshay. No-one outside a couple of counties would know what this was. So how did they do it?

Putting on my Sherlock Holmes deer-stalker hat, I’ve concluded the information must have been gleaned from my membership of Apple iTunes, possibly from credit card details. Even so, that’s very precise targeting and shows what can be done in the age of the internet.

We have known for a while that Google is seeking ways of marrying person-specific advertising with worldwide IP television. Apple seems to have beaten them to it with city-specific advertising by email.

Some might call it spam, but I’m grateful for the information.

The Americanization of Devon, England continues apace. Here in sleepy Exeter we’ve long had a MacDonald’s, more recently a Starbucks, and this month a sparky transatlantic style shopping mall. All we need to complete the process is an Apple store.

You’ll never guess what I disovered this morning while walking through the new shop zone? …

Well waddayaknow! I wonder if Steve Jobs will open it in person. Exeter’s geek community can hardly wait.

The upshot of all this is that we’re going to get iPhone availablility on our doorstep before Christmas. In my mind’s eye I can see the long line of people snaking down Princesshay and right out of town as we queue for a limited supply of these must-have gizmos.

Maybe there’ll be the iPod Touch too — great for web browsing, we’re told. And, of course, that other agonizing decision : to become a Macboy — or not.

I’ve used Windows PCs for years because life is too short for chopping and changing operating systems. Yet, almost my first serious computer was the earliest Apple, the Lisa. I already had the IBM PC in my office where I worked as a marketing manager for British Telecom. Those were the days when you had to input strings of code to do anything with it, and the WP was Wordstar, which operated solely from the keyboard.

Then the Apple Lisa arrived complete with built-in dot-matrix printer. I don’t think it was called a Macintosh in those days, but it had the very first use of “windows” as a feature, plus icons operated by a mouse.

Microsoft soon purloined these ideas, of course, launching its now dominant OS, Windows.

However, I got there first. I launched a series of publications for BT using a system of icons and a kind of window-like presentation. It was all in print, of course, but I did actually steal Apple’s clothes before Bill Gates did.

I think a statue should be erected somewhere, don’t you? Maybe outside the new Apple store.

England strikes back.

I want to wrap up this summer’s series of Photowalking* around Exeter in England with one photo. It represents a cautionary tale.

First, as a preface to the pic, here are two shots I took earlier in the season. This one shows a part of our brand new chill-out and shopping zone, Princesshay, which is set to open in October :

Princesshay in April

The second is one of the best views in Exeter. It’s taken in the Cathedral Close and shows the Elizabethan buildings at one end.

The Close in April

Fast forward to this week in mid-September and here’s how it looks now :

The Close in September

Actually, if I had stepped back 50 feet or so, the intrusive new skyline would be even worse.

My point? If the planners and architects had been a little more perceptive, they could have lowered the new build by just a yard or two and that historic aspect could have been preserved for posterity.

The new building is, of course, our exceptional new Princesshay, which is really spectacular and state of the art.

People say you can’t have everything, but in this case, I can’t help thinking we could have had both.

* See the Flickr link in the sidebar for the full set.