Apple’s chain of brick and mortar retail stores is about to turn 10 years old and it seems the company is planning something special to commemorate the day.
This Thursday will mark 10 years to the day since Apple’s first retail store, at Tysons Corner Center in McLean, Virginia, opened its doors. Apple has certainly come a long way since May of 2001 and, if the latest rumors are to be believed, the Cupertino-based company has something very special planned for this weekend.
Boy Genius Report cites sources that say there’s an overnight shift planned for 10-15 employees from every store starting late Saturday and continuing through to the middle of Sunday. Employees working this shift will be required to sign an NDA with Apple and their cell phones will be locked away in the main office. Black curtains will be hung in the windows to prevent people from seeing in and BGR’s source says that stores have already received hardware to install, and are expecting more to come on Friday or Saturday. Employees have also downloaded "gigabytes of data from Apple corporate" labeled "training." These files will be inaccessible to managers and everyone else until Saturday afternoon.
Considering part of this grand plan is said to include black curtains in Apple store windows, we should know if there’s any truth to these rumors by Saturday afternoon. But what is it Apple has got going on? Could it be the new iPhone? Apple’s nose was put firmly out of joint last year when the iPhone 4 was leaked by Gizmodo. The first iPhone to feature a completely new design, it was a pretty big deal for Apple, but pictures and video were available well in advance of the WWDC 2010 launch. For a company that loves to keep products completely under wraps, that was a big blow. Is Apple planning to surprise everyone by springing an early iPhone 5 launch on us? Are all the reports of an iPhone 5 delay the work of Apple’s expert PR team? We’ll know in a few days!
Quads in laptops- check
SSD's really expensive- check
Consumer forced to decide whether or not to spend (min) $1,500.00 superfluously- Check
Apple improving it's bottom line- CHECK
Apple likes money.
P.S. Typed from Macbook Pro. =\
It's the iCarumba. A birdie told me so.
Anyway, I am curious. First thing that comes to mind is that it is the iPhone 5... BUT I think it would be super hard for Apple, AT&T, Verizon, and all of the other iPhone carries to keep that a secret, so must be something different. Can't be a new Macbook, iMac, or Mac Pro since they refreshed all of those product lines recently. Can't be an iPad 3... cause... well thats just stupid to release a new iPad so close to the release of the current model.
So my bet is on a new iPod line revamp, or a new product entirely.
iPhone, pretty much all iPods, the white MacBook and the Mac mini need the Sandy Bridge treatment, and the Mac Pro is waiting for Intel's new sockets and Xeon processors.
I think a new iPhone is unlikely. Just throwing a new iPhone out there without a lengthy keynote does not create the right kind of buzz.
I'd say new iPods.
Write something more interesting, PLEASE!
Thats what I was possibly thinking, but I don't see why they would do such a secretive launch... Steve announced it at WWDC last year, and slated a summer release. Besides, unless they completely revamped the entire OS, it's not enough for them to have that big of a release.
I was thinking that it may be an Apple-based gaming console... Like a ridiculously suped-up Apple TV designed for gaming.
Gotta be the " iDontneedit."
The Apple "lifestyle" cult makes me puke. The comical thing is how many cultists pay through the nose to be a part of the "iN crowd".
Anyone else see the CNBC pieces where the show the "drones" lined up down a block waiting to get into the Apple store in NY or wherever to buy the newest thing they don't need?
I hope so since the current Macbook version has old hardware such as the 3 year old Core2Duo.