Apple Treats K-Pop Fans to Spatial Audio Experience at New Gangnam Store, South Korea

Apple is opening its fifth retail store in South Korea this Friday, and the company has enlisted K-pop girl band NewJeans to woo the country's users, reports Bloomberg.

newjeans k pop

K-pop girl band NewJeans

The new store will be located in the central Gangnam district of Seoul, the capital city of South Korea, and in a promotional event on Wednesday, Apple set up a pop-up studio inside the new store where visitors could listen to an exclusive version of NewJean's hit song "OMG" recorded in spatial audio.

The marketing strategy of involving a K-pop band isn't new in South Korea – Samsung has a BTS edition of its Galaxy S20+ smartphone there – with such collaborations often going viral online.

As Bloomberg notes, the move is another signal that Apple is ramping up its post-pandemic offensive in the key Asian growth market. Apple Pay went live in South Korea earlier this month, and local media reports that there are plans in place to open a sixth store in Seoul this year. The capital would then have more Apple Stores than there are in Tokyo, Japan.

Apple Gangnam is Apple's first new retail store to open since Apple American Dream opened in New Jersey in December. Apple now has a retail team of nearly 800 on the ground in South Korea, according to Patrick Schuerpf, director of Apple's retail business in Asia.  

Popular Stories

Generic iOS 18

Apple Releases First Betas of iOS 18.3 and iPadOS 18.3

Monday December 16, 2024 10:06 am PST by
Apple today seeded the first betas of upcoming iOS 18.3 and iPadOS 18.3 updates to developers for testing purposes, with the software coming a week after Apple released iOS 18.2 and iPadOS 18.2. iOS 18.3 and iPadOS 18.3 can be downloaded from the Settings app on a compatible device by going to General > Software update. There's no word yet on what's included in iOS 18.3 and iPadOS 18.3, ...
apple tv 4k yellow bg feature

New Apple TV Rumored to Launch Next Year With These Features

Tuesday December 17, 2024 9:02 am PST by
The current Apple TV 4K was released more than two years ago, so the streaming device is becoming due for a hardware upgrade soon. Fortunately, it was recently rumored that a new Apple TV will launch at some point next year. Below, we recap rumors about the next-generation Apple TV. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman last week reported that Apple has been working on its own combined Wi-Fi and...
iPhone 17 Slim Feature

'iPhone 17 Air' With 'Major' Design Changes and 19-Inch MacBook Detailed in New Report

Sunday December 15, 2024 9:47 am PST by
Apple is planning a series of "major design" and "format changes" for iPhones over the next few years, according to The Wall Street Journal's Aaron Tilley and Yang Jie. The paywalled report published today corroborated the widely-rumored "iPhone 17 Air" with an "ultrathin" design that is thinner than current iPhone models. The report did not mention a specific measurement, but previous...
New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18

20 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18.2

Monday December 16, 2024 8:55 am PST by
Apple released iOS 18.2 in the second week of December, bringing the second round of Apple Intelligence features to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 models. This update brings several major advancements to Apple's AI integration, including completely new image generation tools and a range of Visual Intelligence-based enhancements. Apple has added a handful of new non-AI related feature controls as...
Apple TV 4K hero 221018 feature

Here is Everything New for the Apple TV in the tvOS 18.3 Update So Far

Tuesday December 17, 2024 6:25 am PST by
Apple on Monday seeded the first tvOS 18.3 beta to developers for testing. The update will likely be released in January. So far, there are only minor changes for the Apple TV, with one new feature and a few code changes discovered. Below, we outline what is new in tvOS 18.3 so far. Robot Vacuum Support in Home App First, tvOS 18.3 will add robot vacuum support to the Home app on the...
iPhone 17 Pro Dual Tone Feature 1

iPhone 17 Pro Rumored to Stick With 'Triangular' Camera Design

Wednesday December 18, 2024 2:36 am PST by
Contrary to recent reports, the iPhone 17 Pro will not feature a horizontal camera layout, according to the leaker known as "Instant Digital." In a new post on Weibo, the leaker said that a source has confirmed that while the appearance of the back of the iPhone 17 Pro has indeed changed, the layout of the three cameras is "still triangular," rather than the "horizontal bar spread on the...

Top Rated Comments

Ion-X Avatar
23 months ago

Kpop is cancer
Opposing an entire language and culture of music is short-sighted and ignorant. That’s like saying you don’t like Spanish music because you heard one Bad Bunny song and couldn’t understand it.
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)
klasma Avatar
23 months ago

No one in he picture is wearing new jeans. I don’t see any denim fabric.
There you go:

Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
anthogag Avatar
23 months ago
No one in he picture is wearing new jeans. I don’t see any denim fabric. K-what?
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Razorpit Avatar
23 months ago
We need a dedicated K-Pop app ASAP! ?
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
klasma Avatar
23 months ago
That's certainly better than forcing a U2 album onto everyone.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Leon Ze Professional Avatar
23 months ago
"exclusive version of NewJean's hit song "OMG" recorded in spatial audio."

OMG Tim and Craig, where the hell are you, its Gangnam time?
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)