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Apple has updated its in-store concierge system and mobile Apple Store app for users to provide Minority Report style features, like the ability to greet you via notifications when you visit a store or just happen to be walking by one — “John Anderton, you could use a Guinness right about now.”

The mothership has updated its in-store, employee used Concierge system and Apple Store app (iTunes, free). The updated service delivers creepy cool convenience, though the bullet points come off as entirely benign:

• Add engraving and gift wrapping to select purchases from the Apple Store online
• Reserve products for pickup at an Apple retail store
• Check in for reservations and request help within stores (iOS required)
• Add Apple retail store reservations directly to iCal

The key here is that users must opt in for Location Services and Push Notifications have to be turned on, so whether or not you participate is entirely up to you. That said, if you have a Specialist or Genius reservation when you enter a store, you’ll be detected on the local wi-fi network (GPS apparently is used) and be sent a notification asking if you’d like to check in.

Once you let the store know you’ve arrive, the app will tell you where you are in the queue and how long you’ll likely have to wait. Likewise, the store’s Concierge system delivers a notification to the Specialist or Genius schedule to handle the appointment.

Again, if you have notifications and Location Services turned on, the Apple Store you’re walking by can greet you, which calls to mind a scene from Minority Report.

Given that this system is entirely opt-in and that Apple’s quite upfront about how it uses customer data, I’m not particularly concerned about what the mothership’s doing. Then again, if the mothership can build a system like this, so can unscrupulous marketers that are already mining you on the web and robo calling you at dinner…

What’s your take?

via ifoAppleStore and MacStories