Even if they don't copy the Mac aesthetic outright, the mission is fundamentally the same: Create an immersive experience that helps people understand how the particular gadget would make them somehow superhuman. Last August, AT&T opened a museum-like flagship store on the Magnificent Mile in Chicago with giant wall displays, an "experience platform," an "App bar," "lifestyle boutiques," and a gallery for local artists. The message: Your life can be this amazing, with the power of the software we're selling.

Rumors have also been leaking out about Google standing up its own retail stores. Although executives have pooh-poohed the idea, it would make all the sense in the world: Google is coming out with more products, like the Pixel laptop and computer glasses called Glass, that people need to experience before clicking "buy." Right now, Google has excellent brand recognition; it's already insinuated itself into almost every facet of our online lives. And the company certainly knows the value of physical spaces for creating a sense of identity, if its beach ball–filled offices are any indication. A similarly immersive retail store is the only way to not only show people what they can do with a completely new kind of product like Glass, but also the kind of person they'd become, and what company they'd be in (creating not so much a store as a community center would be a great way to match Google's ideology of openness and sharing).

"People are looking for a device that empowers them to achieve how they want to live," says Gruskin. In order to communicate a phone or tablet's utility, he explains, "you start to separate them by value proposition or lifestyle. A lot of times they're the same product. they're just presented differently, so people see how they fit into their lives. instead of being about the product, you try to map them, so people realize this is a tool that's going to make me better, more connected, more fun.... it's not about the gadgets anymore."

That's much more important for the individual brands, which just need to convince you that their products are perfect; it's fine with them if you go buy it online afterwards. Same goes for the wireless carriers, which know you'll need to sign up for a plan, wherever you end up buying a phone. But it doesn't work as well for a department store, which has to manage lots of brands at once, and which makes not a dime if you turn around and purchase the same item for less on Amazon. Showrooming, as the practice is called, has been devastating for electronics warehouse like the late Circuit City and Best Buy.