Hmmm, hoodies, must have been local techies.

There are cement bollards in front of the Apple Store (visible in photos) that I assume are in place to prevent such an occurrence. How did the thieves get around those?

@ Jozie,

See the 4th photo. In that photo is a man wearing a white hooded jacket and he's standing near the eastern side of the store. I would guess the thieves hit the store from that side, near where the man is standing. From that angle, the thieves might avoid hitting the bollards.

Yes (but _western_ side of the store) -- there's a larger gap between the rightmost bollard and the stoplight pole. Google Maps has a streetview. I wonder how many tries it took to find a speed that would penetrate, but not too fast bouncing over the curb. I suspect if a car was nosed up to the glass, the tires would just spin. I assume the airbags went off. Workmen were still there at 10pm last night. I haven't dropped by yet today.

The bollards were seriously to protect against a burglary???
We always assumed they were in case a drunk driver speeding down Florence Street confused the glass storefront for a through street.

Great work by the local police!

@ musical

Techaeris' photo [ at Web Link ] suggests these idiots drove through what I think of as the eastern side of the building.

Book 'em, Danno!

I hope they replace the front with a more tasteful entry, less garish and boastful.

Need an entry that is better at managing the reverberating sound in the store which is lined with hard surfaces that create a hollow noisy environment. Maybe they like the noisy sound to give the impression of lots of customers. I'm a customer and I find it unpleasant.

Good job by the PD. I hope they get them all ASAP.

Don't these devices have GPS tracking on them? How did the thieves expect to get away with a rental car? Don't you need an ID to rent a car? There are cameras everywhere and the plates can be traced back to a rental car service. I would put an instant alert tracking system on these devices if the cords on these devices are cut. Or an RF chip at the very least.

When they were building the store I told those Apple people they should put those bollards adjacent to the window, where they could protect it, instead of planting them out at the curb where they are only effective at taking away parking places.

Apple has very smart people designing its gadgets. Its stores...not so smart.

@Curmudgeon - bollards at the curb also protect people on the sidewalk, so it is a reasonable tradeoff.

Putting the bollards at the curb also protects pedestrians on the sidewalk from iphone-distracted drivers. Apple probably blocked off the parking spaces to make their expensive storefront look prettier from across the street.

The parking situation looks like a City thing rather than an Apple thing. Sure makes the pedestrian crossings more comfortable, as you are not walking off the sidewalk between cars that are maneuvering to parallel park. And the bike parking on either side makes visibility that much better.

@Name, thanks for the link to earlier photos before the black curtain arrived. Interesting how well the glass held up -- probably not at all what the perpetrators expected. Very tight squeeze to get in and out carrying anything. Fascinating fracture properties of tempered glass, making the entire panel appear finely and uniformly white-frosted. I stepped into the store this evening before closing time and it was business as usual. The hole is boarded up, and no word on when the replacement piece will be delivered and installed.

The stolen merchandise is nearly worthless when compared to the damage to the facade.

Items on the table are locked with proprietary software....they are essentially beautiful bricks once they leave the store.

Those glass panels are fabricated outside of the USA. They are three to four layers of heat strengthened glass with a PVB interply. These structural glass panels are ridiculously strong. You could not beat your way through them with a baseball bat and a tire iron if I gave you an entire day.

These guys were really lucky. They caught the edge of the panel and got the PVB to rip...and that gave them entry. This was pure dumb luck.

I would hazard to guess that replacing the glass will cost Apple north of $100k (temporary protection/materials/labor).

As far as getting away with the crime...these guys luck will run out pretty quickly. Each of these stores is equip with a ShopperTrak. Hoodies will not hide their cellphones.

"@Curmudgeon - bollards at the curb also protect people on the sidewalk, so it is a reasonable tradeoff."

Then why don't we have that arrangement everywhere downtown? People on every sidewalk are potentially endangered by every parking car.

No, Occam's Razor says these bollards are to protect Apple's temptingly vulnerable display windows. And Tuesday's news says they don't work.

Better buy your new iThingies now, before their price goes up to cover Apple's new insurance premiums.

Unclear if there was a second car.... It says SUV, but is a Kia Soul really an SUV? Also, how are 10 people going to escape in a Kia Soul?

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