What are the advantages of buying a Mac at an Apple Store?

Aside from the service and other qualitative aspects of dealing directly with Apple, the only "advantage" of purchasing direct from the company is the up to date warranty registration. If you purchase your Apple product through a 3rd party, Apple will have on file an "estimated" purchase date based on the model's manufacturing date.

If you want to claim all of the 365 days on your warranty, you will have to send them the receipt (a scan or picture suffices) in addition to other purchase information so they can update their database to reflect the exact date of purchase.

Other than that, it makes little difference at the end of the day.

• Apple One to One is only available at the time of purchase and only from Apple online or retail.
• Apple retail store return policy is excellent. I did not know which of three USB hubs would satisfy the taste of an interior-decorator client, so I bought them all, let her decide, and returned the rejects. I did not know which portable wireless speakers would perform better, so I bought two and returned one after in-home trial. I did not know whether my home network would see any improvement from the 5th generation Airport Extreme, so I bought three, experimented, and returned one (performance improved about eightfold).

There isn't a meaningful difference between buying at an Apple Store or another retailer beyond your experience in-store. Personally, I prefer Apple stores to most of the other computer retailers just in terms of shopping experience, but a new Mac is a new Mac.

You get a lovely drawstring handled bag with the Apple logo for one.

Also, if you have an Apple ID they will email a copy of your receipt to the associated email address.