Are Apple stores just too crowded?

Last Sunday morning at my local Apple store.

(Credit: Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

The best kind of golf course is one where it's only you and the lovely lady who just took her CEO ex-husband to the cleaners.

Who wants to go to a bar where it takes you half an hour to get a drink -- and even then it's been poured with all the attention of a child being asked to clean their shoes?

Yet Apple stores are beginning to resemble farmer's markets just before Thanksgiving. Or Wal-Mart just after -- minus the punching, kicking, and gouging.

Have you ever walked past one that isn't crammed full of the heady and head-bowed? Do you sometimes feel as if you'll try another time because there doesn't seem space to breathe in there? How long do you have to wait before you can even glide your finger down an iPad Mini?

It's not as if it's Apple's fault that these places are more popular than churches. The company has made products that people want to ogle, stroke, and buy.

It's made its stores sleek with wide aisles and products that are tastefully laid out and spread out.

Still, it's becoming a little much.

In my last two visits to an Apple store -- one on a Sunday morning and one on a Tuesday morning -- it was the sheer noise of human voices that was off-putting. The talking, talking, talking can put you off walking, walking, walking in.

I asked a nice man in a blu... [Read more]