I might check it out then...

ooooo how posh

Analysts and bloggers, start your engines.

I wouldn't set too much store on the shop reference. Britons are used to going to shops to buy things; a store is where we store things, apart from department stores like Harrods.

A bit of a non story.

Most of the UK's departmental stores are basically a collection of concession stands, renting floor space from the store. Not dissimilar to the model used by Amazon et al.

Only poor people, tourists and Hollywood think that Harrods is posh.. It lost it's "exclusivity" once the masses stopped doffing their caps to people wearing top hats

I expect it will be a lot like the "Apple Shop" in many PCWorld stores in the UK. The "Apple Shop" is a section of the store, usually with some Macs, Macbooks and idevices on display. The one in our local PCWorld is about a 6th of the floor space overall. They sell all of the major lines (I actually got a MacMini there as is was more convenient than travelling 30+ miles to the nearest Apple Store.) The staff wear genius style shirts and seem to just deal with Apple related sales. There's usually only one or two vs to 20+ PCWorld floor staff.

Bottom line, it's like an Apple reseller. It's no where near like the experience you get in the larger Apple Stores (like the ones in Regent Street or Covent Garden in London), but if you want to buy a product from someone who vaguely knows what they are talking about, it's a much more positive experience that before they got the in house Apple branding and the general floor staff knew zero about Apple products.

On the Shop vs Store front - in the UK s "Shop" is the usual term used to describe what the American English speakers generally call "Store". The word "Store" to describe "Shop" is a recent thing, last 10 - 15 years I'd say, and usually refers to US chains or very large "Super Stores" which are built on trading estates on the outskirts of towns and cities.

Actually, Harrods Technology department is PC World rebranded...

Sounds like good news. I remember back in the depths of the previous millennium Harrods had the best deals on Apple computers! It was amusing to see people's reactions when they asked where I bought my Macs from. The London Covent Garden Apple Store doesn't even stock some basic Apple products. They look at me strangely when I ask to buy something.