So you'll meet someone at a Best Buy store, but snub them if they say "at Best Buy"? Or a Starbucks coffee shop is OK, but "at Starbucks" is not? I'm not understanding here.

He went overboard with the "never want to speak to you again" bit but he's not wrong.

We say "at McDonalds" or "at Starbucks" because these places have a sort of casual ubiquity that's inserted them into our daily lives. We say "at the Apple store" because that's what feels right based its place in our daily experience.

A marketing guy trying to goad us into giving the Apple store that same casual ubiquity without "earning" it just by dropping some leather couches and potted plants into a store is pretentious. It feels wrong and we know it in an uncanny valley sort of way.

I don't think you should be down voted but I think you're wrong. The comment is clearly aspirational and reasonable. To get all uppity (the op) about it is kinda ridiculous.

Uppity, like Apple?

I don't think I can reach those heights. (Remember those Mac vs PC commercials? You can't get much more uppity than that.)

In Vancouver we would always say, "Let's meet at Eatons", or, "VPL", or, "The Bay", or heck, even, "Let's meet at Mickey Dee's" (Mcdonalds).

Do a good enough job creating an inviting public space, that people frequent, then yes, I think it's a reasonable goal to say, "Let's meet at Apple" - you've got to aspire to something, and that seems like a pretty worthwhile goal.