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Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge

bbc.com

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Re: Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge

#91

Post by GordonS »

maaaats wrote: post #67
srcmap wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should have area for group meeting area to host regular meetup / learning tutorial sessions for hobbyist and students. Also a lab/work bench where anyone can plug and play different components together and experiments, measure voltage, signals with an USB oscilloscopes (make with PI? ). Volunteers can come in regularly to demo, share info, organizer classes. Instead of just shelf full of the products - it should…

Why should they? This is trying to reach new people, not cater to existing hackers in the same way. You could always just visit a hackerspace. Having this in a high street locations would be extremely expensive and waste of resources.

What about maybe getting groups of school kids in? I'm sure plenty would have their interest piqued and end up making a purchase (or their parents, depending on age)

Re: Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge

#92

Post by untog »

maaaats wrote: post #67
srcmap wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should have area for group meeting area to host regular meetup / learning tutorial sessions for hobbyist and students. Also a lab/work bench where anyone can plug and play different components together and experiments, measure voltage, signals with an USB oscilloscopes (make with PI? ). Volunteers can come in regularly to demo, share info, organizer classes. Instead of just shelf full of the products - it should…

Why should they? This is trying to reach new people, not cater to existing hackers in the same way. You could always just visit a hackerspace. Having this in a high street locations would be extremely expensive and waste of resources.

Even in that context I think a learning space would be good. Apple runs classes in their Apple Stores, and I know a good number of (typically older) people who learned to use their iPad that way. Something similar for the Pi could bring in a new audience, not cater to existing hackers.

Re: Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge

#94

Post by eponeponepon »

folkrav wrote: post #75
ekianjo wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. Brand-wise, I would rather see the Raspberry Pi shop like a kind of bazaar where you find everything in all sorts of places rather than a very tidy and clean place where everything is in order. The "everything should look like what Apple does" is really tiring and generic these days.

The "RPi is for nerds" shtick is specifically what they're probably trying to get rid of with that store. Looking approachable is a pretty key component of that. Doesn't really look like an Apple Store either, unless wood and white is now reserved for Apple...

    unless wood and white is now 
    reserved for Apple...
I wouldn't put it past them to try...

Re: Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge

#95

Post by theoh »

giarc wrote: post #80
hrktb wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps their thinking is that you can already find the Pi in bazaar kind of shops full of electronics parts and really aimed at tinkerers. This shop could be more for luring new users and making it look simple for a first approach.

I think you are exactly right. The customers who want the bazaar with lots of parts are already their customer and will continue to be their customer regardless of a brick and mortar store. This is trying to attract a new customer.

Let's be clear on this: the store is not located in Cambridge because there is a particularly large untapped market there. It is located in Cambridge because of the Pi's ties to the city. Maybe the huge success of the device means that there is active pressure on the RPi folks to diversify or to create a physical manifestation of the brand. Maybe a bricks and mortar store is just a vain indulgence, though I'd hope not.

The RPi has always been about the "technically sweet", not about maximum penetration into new markets.

Re: Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge

#96

Post by swebs »

adrianN wrote: post #77
ChrisRR wrote: post #25

Hurry up and announce a Raspberry Pi 4 already! I want to give you more money

Is there a computer in the Raspberry Pi price range that has >=4gb RAM and can play full HD movies? The 1GB limit is basically what's keeping me from using a Pi as my main computer.

>and can play full HD movies

Can you be more specific? "Full HD" usually refers to 1080p, which all Raspberry Pi models can easily handle for h264 video due to their hardware decoder. The Raspberry Pi 3 can handle most other formats through software just fine, though it may struggle with more intense formats like 10 bit h265. For that, an Odroid C2 may be what you're looking for. They advertise:

>H.265 4K/60FPS and H.264 4K/30FPS capable VPU

Re: Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge

#98

Post by bluescrn »

folkrav wrote: post #75
ekianjo wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. Brand-wise, I would rather see the Raspberry Pi shop like a kind of bazaar where you find everything in all sorts of places rather than a very tidy and clean place where everything is in order. The "everything should look like what Apple does" is really tiring and generic these days.

The "RPi is for nerds" shtick is specifically what they're probably trying to get rid of with that store. Looking approachable is a pretty key component of that. Doesn't really look like an Apple Store either, unless wood and white is now reserved for Apple...

The RPi is for nerds, so long as we class engineers, scientists, makers and so on as nerds.

The non-nerdy masses aren’t interested, they’re happily consuming content on iOS or Android, or doing work on Windows/MacOS

Re: Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge

#99

Post by wolfgke »

folkrav wrote: post #75
ekianjo wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. Brand-wise, I would rather see the Raspberry Pi shop like a kind of bazaar where you find everything in all sorts of places rather than a very tidy and clean place where everything is in order. The "everything should look like what Apple does" is really tiring and generic these days.

The "RPi is for nerds" shtick is specifically what they're probably trying to get rid of with that store. Looking approachable is a pretty key component of that. Doesn't really look like an Apple Store either, unless wood and white is now reserved for Apple...

> The "RPi is for nerds" shtick is specifically what they're probably trying to get rid of with that store.

Companies should be very careful not to alienate their core audience that made them big. In the past, lots of companies in their plans to widen their audiences made this mistake.

Re: Raspberry Pi Opens First High Street Store in Cambridge

#100

Post by wolfgke »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #86
folkrav wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "RPi is for nerds" shtick is specifically what they're probably trying to get rid of with that store. Looking approachable is a pretty key component of that. Doesn't really look like an Apple Store either, unless wood and white is now reserved for Apple...

> Looking approachable is a pretty key component of that. Agreed, the other key component though is actually making their machine and software/hardware approachable, smooth, performant and reliable. Which they haven't really put any effort in to since they started. I really wanted the dream of an affordable computer for kids to be a reality but at the end of the day when the $35 just isn't as performant as a budget t…

> I really wanted the dream of an affordable computer for kids to be a reality but at the end of the day when the $35 just isn't as performant as a budget tablet around the same price then kids are going to just end up with tablets and never have the opportunity to crack the machine open.

For the children that love to tinker, $€35 will probably not be an obstacle. Tablets and RPis appeal to quite different audiences.

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