It seems that opening large stores is all the rage at the moment. After Apple's Sydney Store opening last week, Telstra yesterday threw the shackles off its new T[life] store on the corner of Bourke and Swanston streets in Melbourne.

Unlike Apple, there were no people camping out overnight; there's no gigantic glass panels or Italian sandstone; instead there's two levels of Telstra, crowned by a giant 22 x 2.5 metre LCD screen.

As with other T[life] stores, you can tell the obvious Apple Store influence, from the free daily training sessions and demonstrations, areas dedicated to getting your hands on the products and other areas dedicated to business users and home networking. Considering that this is their fifth T[life] store, they must be doing something right as well.

Telstra also used the launch to show off their new QR codes yesterday, and for everybody keeping notes, they refused to discuss the iPhone (although Uncle Sol did pull out the new HTC Touch Diamond for a bit). Uncle Sol did, however, go on to say that Telstra was bigger than Apple.

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Apple has plans to open three Apple Stores in Australia this year. Previously, only the three-story outlet in Sydney's CBD was confirmed, but it has now been revealed by job ads on the Apple Web site that Sydney's Chatswood and Melbourne's Chadstone will also have stores.  

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