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Comment by giobox | Hacker News Reader

> Plus even in the U.S Apple Store's aren't that common

There are 270+ Apple stores in the US, I don't have the figures to hand but an overwhelming percentage of the country's actual population live within an hour of an Apple store. They are common, frankly.

I'm not defending the decision to require a store visit here, but lets not paint a picture of Apple store availability that doesn't exist. The number of people with disposable income in the US to purchase a 3500 dollar headset and actually want to buy one who aren't living under an hour from an Apple store is likely a very small list.

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That’s about one apple store for every twenty Walmarts.

I’m not going to drive out of my way to pick up some Rustler jeans.

But I will to buy electronic gear or even to get my right AirPod replaced that I dropped in the water when I was on a boat in Cabos…

Yeah or in my case the apple store becomes a part of a trip, there's not one near my home but there is one near the beach house I rented this year, so when I wanted a better fitting waterproof watch band I just baked a trip to that store into my trip itinerary.

If I were in the target market for the vision pro I would totally schedule an appointment and drive a couple of hours to get a curated experience and feel confident I'd come home with the right combination of lenses and everything.

So, the next Apple Store will be around 4.5 times further than the next Walmart, on average.

My nearest apple store is 3 hours away.

And there are plenty of people (including my 80 year old parents) who drive 3 hours from their small town in South Georgia to the nearest bigger city to buy products that they want to be able to see instead of our used online.

In my dads case, music gear

I even know people who would drive from the even smaller places than where my parents live who would drive to my home town to go the mall, movies and Olive Garden.

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