Apple's Steve Cano shows Istanbul store to press (pictures), Tim Cook not attending opening

Steve Cano, Apple’s manager of retail stores, introduced Turkey’s first retail store to the Turkish press today before its opening this Saturday. Cano noted that the Istanbul Apple store will be Apple’s 424th retail store. He stated that there will be 100 employees working at this store. He said that these employees have received a lot of training. For instance, Apple selected the store manager (Ms. Meltem Guner) a year ago and she has been under training for the last year. Cano also talked about the building. He said that special glass materials were used to take full advantage of sun light. It was also confirmed that Tim Cook will not be attending the opening.

UPDATE:

Turkish President will not be in attendance also. But he will unofficially visit the store shortly after its opening.
More glass was used in the new Istanbul store than any previous Apple store.
Apple will give away 4500 Apple t-shirts at the grand opening.

UPDATE 2:

The Turkish president’s official Saturday calendar has just been published and it does not look like he will attend the store opening tomorrow, as previously reported:

SK( Managing Editor )

Obsessed with tech since the early arrival of A/UX on Apple, Sudz (SK) is responsible for the editorial direction of AppleToolBox. He is based out of Los Angeles, CA.

Sudz specializes in covering all things macOS, having reviewed dozens of OS X and macOS developments over the years.

In a former life, Sudz worked helping Fortune 100 companies with their technology and business transformation aspirations.