Australia's largest carrier, Telstra, has pulled a world-first out of its pocket and launched an Android specialty store in Melbourne called Androidland. As the name implies, Androidland is an Android specialty store, much in the way the Apple store caters only to its own products, and offers Android fans their own brand-centric hub for everything Android.
The store offers an interactive experience for shoppers with games, gadgets and on-site experts to help out with features and user interface queries.
Visitors to Androidland will be able to:
- Board the Android spaceship – An interactive spaceship zone allows visitors to pilot the Google Earth app on the giant screen and fly across the world; play Angry Birds on a big interactive screen; and create an Android avatar that can be printed or shared.
- Have fun in the play zone – Visitors can sit under a pixel tree and play with live devices; try their luck on an Android skill tester and clown machine and flick through a virtual library of Google Books.
- Get expert advice – Android experts, specially trained by Google, will be on hand to help customers set up their Google accounts, recommend popular Android Market™ apps, answer questions and to help customise device homescreens.
- Get hands on with the latest Android devices – Visitors will be able to try out a wide range of working Android smartphone and tablets.
- Window shop like never before – Customers will be able to interact with a massive 24 x 9 metre window display that features an augmented reality game challenging visitors to catch Android robots drifting in a virtual snowfall.
Via a Telstra Spokesperson
This is a pretty bold move for Telstra, as nothing like this has ever been tried with the Android platform. Up until now Android has remained a widely spread, yet amorphous operating system with no kind of specialty support like this. It’s possible that stores like Androidland could be a piece of the puzzle the Google needs in order to solve the fragmentation problem that has developed across its platform’s sea of handsets and tablets.
Having a specialty store with staff trained specifically in the Android experience could help customers break the iOS barrier that has stood for so long. With iOS being more of a “picku-up-and-go” kind of experience, many people find the initial learning-curve of Android to be a bit confronting. However, with a salesperson to explain and competently demonstrate the key features of each Android device and how they differ from one another, that intimidation factor may find itself disappearing quickly.
Androidland currently only operates out of one location: 246 Bourke St, Melbourne (corner of Swanston and Bourke). Opening hours are:
- 8am-6pm Monday to Thursday
- 8am-9pm Friday
- 9am-6pm Saturday
- 10am-6pm Sunday
Anyone outside of Australia hoping to make a visit to an Androidland will just have to wait patiently and hope that the Melbourne store is a success. If it is we expect to see a few more Androidland-esque stores cropping up around the world in the coming years.
We’re now of course wondering when we’ll see Windows Phone World or The BlackBerry Barn crop up. We’ll be sure to keep our eyes and ears open for any news on a rush in competition with companies returning to a traditional brick-and-mortar style distribution technique.
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