It is no stretch of the imagination that Steve Jobs is a little bit different. He shrouds everything he or his company does literally under a cloak of secrecy. When Apple started its retail initiative they had their Senior Vice President of Retail, Ron Johnson, hide hisidentity and background both inside and out Apple for months. They also developed secret Apple Store prototypes in a warehouse near the Apple campus.

So it came to me as no surprise that Apple built a super secret Apple Store on a Warner Brother lot to shoot a super secret commercial for the not so secret 3G iPhone.

Seen over Memorial Day weekend, Apple built a full scale store on a sound stage at the Warner Bros. lot in Los Angeles. On Memorial Day they proceeded to shoot a commercial that will be part of Steve’s announcement on June 9, a la Steve’s favorite team at TBWA/Chiat/Day. This was no small feat. This was a full scale and fully operable store, complete with laptops, iMacs, the kids pod, software and accessories on the shelf, functional genius bar. Everything you’d see at at the Apple store, was on the lot/soundstage (same one that The Perfect Storm was filmed on) in working order. The store took 2 days to build. Tear down was complete Monday evening (memorial day). Only a handful of people were allowed to stay for the shoot and no extras/actors were seen in the “store” when the shooting commenced. [via]

Now to add fuel to the fire a Apple insider has tipped me that the 5th Avenue store and closure was not for a commercial shoot but to fuel the media fire and get more free press about the 3G iPhone. Now it makes no sense to some why Apple would go to such a great expense for a decoy. Just think of the PR they have received by shutting down their most high profile retail location.

Thoughts?