The mobile phone group has teamed up with the computer firm to show consumers how digital devices can work together, writes Karlin Lillington

Forget information overload. At the moment, most consumers of electronics equipment are far more likely to feel device overload - the helpless sensation of having a set of expensive digital toys that should be able to work together in useful ways but not having a clue how to make them do so.

That's where a new flagship store on Dublin's Grafton Street, run by O2 in partnership with Apple Computer, intends to make a difference.

"Interactivity," says Mr Jason Corrigan, O2's retail sales manager, who is standing in the bright whiteness and minimalist display counters of the O2 Experience Store, "that's what this is all about."

This is definitely not your usual mobile phone shop of the sort that dots the cities and towns of the State, flogging phones and pay-as-you-go cards. Over two floors, the Experience Store features mobile phones, digital music players, digital camcorders, digital cameras, software and - in Apple's first move to an Irish high street - Apple computers, from iMacs to the portable iBook and PowerBook range.

The devices are also all "live" - you can test out the mobiles, listen to the digital music players, try out a camera.

"A lot of times, people just look at the box and then buy a camera. They never really take a photograph," says sales consultant Mr Phil Nulty.

It's precisely this ability to try things out - and see how the various devices on display can work together - that Mr Corrigan feels will make the Experience Store a serious player in the electronics market.

At the centre of the interactive experience, he says, are Apple computers and Apple's iLife software suite.

The latest release of iLife lets people create home movies and DVDs, manage their digital music, create music with a new application called iGarage, co-ordinate their contacts and calendar information, and synchronise everything with music players, mobiles and internet sites.

Mr Nulty - who, like all the shop assistants, has been trained in the use of all the equipment - whips out a camcorder, films some of the action in the shop, transfers it to the Mac laptop, then easily edits in various sounds and special effects (a U2 song as background and an effect that makes it look as if it is raining in the store). In a few seconds, he can burn it to a DVD.

For the punter who has been thinking about a camcorder or a laptop, the demonstration - and the store is all about demos, says Mr Corrigan - is compelling. As a matter of fact, it's enough to make someone who would never have even considered buying a digital camcorder start to feel this is a must-have, incredibly fun item to own.

In addition, such demonstrations must serve as a major boost to Apple, whose products have great loyalty among Apple aficionados but suffer from a small market share that cannot be helped by the fact that they are rarely seen in shops.

The company, which holds only about 5 per cent of the home computer market, has had a major success with its iPod and is pushing hard to batten itself down in the digital media content management corner with consumers.

"From Apple's point of view, the store gives them a great showcase and also shows how all these different digital products can work together. Interactivity is just so easy," Mr Corrigan says. "We feel there is a gap in the market for buying Apple. We're looking at putting them on the high street, so that customers who never would have looked at Apple can come and see the products here."

In the three weeks that the store has been open, it has sold several Mac computers, he says, as well as many iPods - a device that turned out to be a holiday bonus for O2.

Mr Corrigan says O2 talked to Apple about the concept for the store in the first place because of the success O2 has had in selling Apple's high-end digital music player, the iPod, since it tested it in 35 stores last November.

"On the back of how well the iPod worked for us over Christmas, we thought, yeah, let's do this," according to Mr Corrigan.

However, it's one thing for a mobile phone outlet to sell a few digital music devices on the side. It's another thing entirely for O2 to cross over into the realm of both computer shop and electronics store, featuring products from Apple, Sony and Canon that most people don't associate with mobiles.

But that's the whole point of the store, he says. "We show people the interactivity, we show them how these things can connect to a GPRS [mobile\] network, and we show them how they can get on the mobile internet. This is integrated mobility, and we feel we can tie a lot of this back to O2."

At the very least, the profit margins on some of the products must be enticing for a mobile operator. For example, a top-end Canon camcorder retails at €1,100. The Apple PowerBook on display goes for around €2,500.

Mr Corrigan acknowledges that, in the past, the most expensive devices in an O2 store would have been its XDA handheld, a combination PDA (personal digital assistant) and mobile, with internet and e-mail access built in; and the Blackberry, the handheld e-mail device. These topped the bill at around €700 maximum, depending on the device and service package. Such devices would have sold only to a tiny fraction of O2's high-end business market.

By contrast, a costly laptop, iPod or camcorder is a mass market device, of more general appeal to the crowds walking past on Grafton Street.

"We want to sell as many different products as we can," says Mr Corrigan.

The Experience Store is a gamble, especially the focus on Apple products, given their lower profile in the consumer's eye, but O2 seems to like the high stakes. Plans are already underway for a second Dublin store, to open in Henry Street in May or June, and O2 is eyeing other locations across the country, Mr Corrigan says.