Apple opens its largest store in the United States at 6 p.m. EST today, a glass-and-steel extravaganza in downtown Boston.

The Thursday grand opening is unusual for Apple, and likely coincides with an off day for the Boston Red Sox. Players are rumored to be showing up for the event.

The line to be among the first inside the store numbers more than 300, and stretches back four blocks. Many in line hope to get a free poster and maybe something more. At previous openings, Apple has randomly given away MacBooks, iPods and iTunes gift cards.

Left: The three-story, 20,000-square-foot store sits smack in the middle of the posh Boylston Street shopping strip. The glass-fronted store is sandwiched between a pair of older stone buildings, a juxtaposition described by one Gizmodo commentator as "a diamond in a rock pile."

Photo: Michael Oh/Tech Superpowers

The Boston store is Apple's second-largest store: The store on London's Regent Street is 28,000 square feet.

Ron Johnson, the head of Apple retailing, said Apple had been eyeing the spot for several years, and that the size of the store is in line with Apple's growth.

“If we had opened this store in 2001, it would have been one level,” Johnson said at a media event Wednesday. “If we had opened it in 2005, it would have been a two-level store. But in 2008, it’s the largest store in the U.S.”

The store will be open for extended hours, but won’t operate 24/7.

Photo: sushiesque/Flickr

The store has three stories connected by a glass spiral staircase. Computers are on the first floor; iPods, iPhones and accessories on the second; and the troubleshooting Genius Bar on the third floor. The Genius Bar is large enough to handle up to 1,000 queries a day, Apple says.

The product placement is reminiscent of the old supermarket strategy of making shoppers walk through the store to get to staples like bread and milk. Customers are led down the aisles in the hope that they'll pick up more expensive products along the way.

The third floor will also have a "Studio" section for tutorials and personal training. Members of Apple's One to One training program will receive personal tutorials in moviemaking, music, office productivity and more. The store will also host school nights and summer-camp programs.

Photo: sushiesque/Flickr

The new store is right across the street from another Apple dealer, Tech Superpowers. Afraid his business will be crushed by the new store, owner Michael Oh buried a company shirt below the Apple store to curse it, a la the Red Sox shirt initially buried below the new Yankee Stadium.

"We're doing it with a wink," Oh told the Boston Globe.

Apple now has 210 stores: 183 in the United States and 17 more in Japan, Canada, Britain and Italy. The stores are a cash cow, earning $1.45 billion in the second quarter. Apple plans to open 45 more stores during 2008, concentrating on overseas expansion in China, Europe and Australia.

Photo: sushiesque/Flickr

Apple received more than 5,000 applications for 165 jobs at the store, according to the Globe.

The staff wears different colored shirts to indicate their roles: "Concierges" who greet new customers wear orange, sales "specialists" wear light blue, and the "geniuses" wear dark blue.

Photo: sushiesque/Flickr

The design of the store was carefully supervised by Apple CEO Steve Jobs, co-holder of a patent for the signature glass staircase used in many of Apple's "flagship" stores.

The stores use a lot of the same materials and design cues as Apple's products -- steel, glass and aluminum.

Johnson told reporters that the floor is the same stone used in sidewalks in Florence, Italy. “It’s a common palette of materials,” he told Reuters, “both old and new.”

Photo: sushiesque/Flickr

Apple's stores are built on the idea of bringing "high-touch" service to selling technology. Instead of cacophonous big-box stores staffed by ill-informed and unkempt teenagers, Apple's stores are no-pressure spaces where consumers can get comfortable with machines before making a purchase.

Photo: sushiesque/Flickr

The store has a number of green touches. There's a characteristic skylight in the roof -- Steve Jobs and his architects are fans of natural light. And the rooftop features a small garden, covered in grass (the kind that's mown, not smoked).

The building collects and filters rainwater, which is fed into Boston's Back Bay water table.

"We're highly confident that we've built a store here that is going to have a great [positive] environmental impact," Johnston said.

Photo: jdlouhy/Flickr

CNET staffers are joking that CBS bought their company purely for the coveted News.com domain name. But nobody is complaining about the windfall.

"The scuttlebutt … around here is that News.com will be used for CBS' News operations and that our News.com will end up being a tab off that page," said one staffer, who asked not to be identified.

It's inconceivable that CBS paid a staggering $1.8 billion just for a domain name, but nonetheless, most of the reporters at News.com -- the tech news division of CNET -- are expecting that CBS will take the domain name for its own news operation, the staffer said.

"It does seem clear we will lose our domain name," the staffer said. "At least we have a parent that's solid and has some money -- and isn't News Corp."

Once the highflier of online media, CNET has recently been rocked by stock option scandals, hostile takeover attempts, layoffs and staff attrition. Skeleton crews run many departments and morale is low.

While CBS is seen as stodgy, the company is stable and has a solid reputation for supporting the expensive business of news.

Delighted rank and file are busy trying to tabulate the worth of their shares, which they've been told will all vest immediately.

CBS paid a premium $11.50 per share for CNET, a 44-percent premium above CNET's closing price yesterday.

"We feel it's pretty good news, and we're all pretty happy," said another employee at CNET who also asked not to be named. "It was a good price, and we're all going to make a bit of money off of it."

None of the staffers have yet been told CBS's plans but a company-wide meeting is scheduled for next Tuesday, they said.

"Me personally, my initial reaction was 'Oh, fuck, corporate media is getting to us.'" said one CNET designer, who also asked not to be identified. "Every channel of communication in this country is owned by five or six companies, and we're joining that group … I just don't know if there's a way around that anymore."

But the designer said, generally, the staff welcomed the acquisition.

"The general feeling in the small talk going around is that this is a positive development," the designer said. "We're finally going to have some money behind us, because CNET has been hurting for the last couple of months. The first two quarters have been kind of hard, so I think this comes as good news, because obviously CBS is a big company that has a lot of capital."

"The mood is light. People are upbeat about it," said one staffer. "There's no worrying or anything. I think people think it's a good thing overall for the company."