All of Apple’s 495 stores will begin featuring ‘Today at Apple’ educational sessions focusing on a wide range of topics starting sometime in May, the company announced today. While most will be led by Apple employees, the company also teased that in select cities participants will be treated to sessions from “world-class artists, photographers and musicians.” The free programs will focus on activities centered around Apple devices, like iPhone photography, drawing with the Apple Pencil and coding classes for kids that teach the company’s Swift programming language. For more advanced users, Pro Series courses will also provide “a deep dive into Final Cut Pro X and Logic Pro X with sessions on color correction and grading to post production, or audio mixing to editing for emotion, and more.”
The new programs are designed to be more engaging and community-based than the company’s now-discontinued One to One tutoring program that was more focused on teaching users the basics of how to run their new devices. Angela Ahrendts, Apple’s senior vice president of retail, told CBS This Morning the stores themselves are being reshaped—outfitted with mobile screens created by Apple’s design team specifically for Today at Apple sessions, updated seating and sound, and wall displays to showcase the products—in an effort to create the feeling of a “town square” where customers engage with their devices and with one another. “Starbucks figured it out, you know? Being a gathering place for – right? ‘Meet me at Starbucks,’” Ahrendts said. “And you know, I’ve told the teams, ‘I’ll know we’ve done a really, really great job if the next generation, if Gen Z says, “Meet me at Apple. Did you see what’s going on at Apple today?”’”