Sure, we all know retail is tough, and that Apple probably has a bumpy ride ahead-- certainly many analysts and pundits seem to think so. But has anyone stopped to consider the stress that Apple's retail initiative is putting on the Mac fanatics in the trenches? We've seen more than a few Apple enthusiasts stopped cold in mid-sentence-- not because they couldn't come up with nice things to say about the stores and the good they will bring to the Mac platform, but because they simply don't know what to call these new stores in the first place. Frankly, it's a nomenclatural nightmare.

We've been talking about these stores for months, now-- years, even. And in all that time, we've been forced to use unwieldy, dull, and un-Maclike generic phrases such as "Apple retail stores," "brick-and-mortar Apple stores," and "Apple's own stores" to describe the concept. (The engagingly simple "Apple store" causes too much confusion with Apple's online sales effort.) We had hoped that once Apple took the wraps off its first, uh, "Apple-owned retail outlet" earlier in the week, we'd finally have a real name to use, like iStore or MacVille or... well, just about anything. Instead, we found ourselves faced with the only situation worse than having to fall back on lame, uninteresting "Apple retail stores"-like phrases: as far as we can make out, these places have no name.

Seriously, Apple's web site only refers to them generally as "retail stores." And once we stared at it for a while, Apple's gorgeous storefront (pictured in several MacSlash photos like this one) chilled us to the depths of our souls: there's no name identifying the place at all. Look for yourselves; there's nothing there (other than the kick-butt window displays, of course) but two lit-up Apple logos. Granted, Apple's logo is one of the most recognizable ones on the planet, and no one's going to wonder what's inside that store, but how the heck are they going to be listed on those "You Are Here" maps in the malls? This is like when Prince changed his name to that squiggly thing and the press kept calling him "The Artist Formerly Known As Prince." Eventually he changed it back (thus becoming "The Artist Formerly Known As 'The Artist Formerly Known As Prince'"), probably because he got tired of trying to spell out his symbol when ordering a pizza by phone.

We think we understand what The CEO Formerly Known As Steve was trying to accomplish-- what better way to underscore the power of the Apple brand than to open stores bearing nothing but the Apple logo? Still, though, we wouldn't have minded a store name that's easier to communicate. What is it with Apple and difficult-to-name retail initiatives? This is almost as frustrating as that CompUSA deal which had us all saying "store within a store" over and over again for a few months...