The kind of high-end storefront Apple has been rolling out in New York, Beijing, and the like begs the question how commodity vendors like Dell (and by extension, Microsoft, which requires bargain-basement commodity boxes produced at thin margins by efficient OEMs in order to make Microsoft's pre-installed products seem inexpensive) hope to make money copying Apple's retail behavior. High-rent retail locations don't make sense for commodity products, and taking on support overhead works against MSFT's historical margins strategy (to push support to OEMs to retain maximum profit). Given that MSFT's new OS isn't working against Apple's apparent long-term trend toward higher penetration, and Apple's component purchasing power places it in a position from which competitors have a hard time profitably chasing Apple's various products, it seems that a "me-too" retail strategy will either be vastly overpriced for its delivered profit or will be a transparent effort to dress up a trailer park like a community of established brownstones.

I predict both Dell and Microsoft will find retail an inefficient way to reclaim high-margin share from Apple. I suspect Apple will continue to hold and expand high-margin business despite effort to compete on price.

On the other hand, even with a screen reader attachment, an unattended iPod touch POS might look like a demo unit to play with for a customer, or a new music player/quick profit for somebody with sticky fingers. Certainly not something to cause Apple panic, but the very desirability of an iPod touch means they have to think those aspects through.

More interesting is if the POS solution is Apple-created or third party, and, after the bugs and kinks are worked out of the system, if Apple/that third party would sell this as a solution for retailers.