One reason is that they usually don't release something that's not worth the excitement. If you keep a good track record, people will attach significance to everything.
Not having worked, or knowing anyone who has worked in an Apple store, inferring the magnitude of the event given the procedure is difficult. Have they ever done this before? If so, what happened when they did?
Let's be realistic. New product announcements from Apple happen at planned press events. The 10th anniversary of their first store will probably just have fancy new store displays and a give-away.
Edit: Disagreement probably warrants a reply, not a down-vote.
Idiots are rampantly downvoting everything on the site lately. It's another sign that the quality of participants here has declines as the site's popularity has grown.
At this point I'd be happy to see the whole karma system canned.
I'm not sure that the surge in membership has anything to do with it. Even at my karma level I still can't down-vote, so new members certainly aren't bringing me down. Seems more religious to me.
I know of at least one change that isn't a new product for consumers but isn't a new change to the store displays either. Nor a giveaway. Might be what this is.
Apple typically covers a large product launch with a large product announcement. I'd expect an announcement at least a couple days before looping in the stores for two reasons:
1) That many employees will be difficult to keep quite. It is my understanding that typically retail employees find out about a product launch along with the general public.
2) Soft launching or just launching via retail stores wastes a significant opportunity for Apple to garner extended coverage in the press. Why limit yourself to just one big press hoopla when with an announcement AND a launch you get two.
All that said, BGR has nailed stuff in the past and Apple likes to keep people on their toes.
You forgot the question mark in the title. Not sure if Betteridge's Law of Headlines applies here, but let's not convert speculation into fact on a whim :)
Let's say if Apple were to launch a cloud service that required large amounts of data to be uploaded or downloaded wouldn't Apple Stores be a nice oasis in the desert for the slow cap stricken broadband connections most people have at home or on 3G iOS devices? One you get that initial sync done the incremental updates are manageable.
If I had to guess, I'd say this will be the launch of Apple's cloud service. Coming right on the tails of Google I/O, it should take the spotlight from Google Music(what little it has). Also, this early announcement will allow developers to come to WWDC with some background on the service.
Actually, if I was a betting man, I'd say nothing is going to happen at all :)
It seems strange to think that if it were specifically for the anniversary that it would be happening 2-3 days AFTER said anniversary (Saturday night and Sunday instead of thursday). Also, Sunday seems like a strange day for a new product launch.
Absolutely nothing about what's planned, just that something is possibly going to happen. I wish tech news focused much less on rumors, and more on actual announcements.
Set top box (ATV upgrade) with app store and new form of remote would, IMO, go nuts. I'd like to see MS Surface-type technology within reach of the public but doubt the market would be as big as a set top box?
This is my prediction as well. If I look at everything Apple is doing content-wise, ATV seems too small (figuratively speaking) in comparison. I want to control my TV with my iPad. Apple has to be concerned about Google's somewhat strong (albeit supposedly buggy) foray into the living room. How can they give away this territory without putting up a better fight? I predict that the killer feature will be optional control via an iPhone/iPad. The 10' interface stinks for content selection and other input-intensive activities although it's great for a shared viewing experience. The new ATV should turn my A/V set-up into a seemingly dumb slave of my iPad. Some IR repeaters to do Harmony-esque things would be a huge bonus. I also predict that this device will be Google TV-like in that it acts as a pass-thru for other, "legacy" devices. The interesting question will be whether it will include a Blu-Ray player. Of course, I have no special knowledge of Apple's plans -- I'm just looking at all the other cards Apple has played and imagining a product which makes the previously played cards look like brilliant moves.
Because there is a layer of UI/UX between the screen and "their box" that Apple traditionally hates. If there is an Apple TV with a screen (and I'm not saying there will be) then you can be sure the input switching madness, weird motion interpolation, iron-maiden remotes, and shitty setup experience will all be gone. If it ever comes to exist, it will exist to close that final gap between Apple/iTunes and your couch.
However I would then argue that Apple should put all the 'TV stuff' (cable input, av input, etc) in the Apple TV and have that plug in to the TV. Added benefit of being way more portable/modular.
EDIT:
Actually I'm not sure that makes sense. It seems like Apple's goal is to get you consuming content through Apple. How would a TV be any better for that purpose than the Apple TV? With the growth of streaming video and the decline of cable it seems dumb to optimize for cable. The user experience would be for you to leave the input on the Apple TV all the time and do everything there -- tv, movies, iOS games/apps.
Basically because Apple wants to control the whole experience from turning it on to turning it off. Not saying that everyone cares about that level of integration, but if the past is anything to go by then Apple does.
This is a crucial point. The displays Apple sells are nothing like your average Living Room TV in dimensions, service requirements, or capabilities.
Apple doesn't have the retail floorspace to stock or sell 50" TVs, they don't have experience with cable tuners and all of the other associated crap that distinguishes a TV from a simple display, and they don't have in-home warrantee repairmen; expecting the purchaser to schlep a 50" behemoth to the genius bar for service is out of the question.
Why am I being downvoted? Turning their display into a tv may not be a big step but turning their display into a tv that will replace the current living room tv certainly is.
A new iPhone? Rumor had it that it hadn't gone into full scale production yet, but who knows how accurate that is.
It seems like camera parts and cases were already being leaked over the weekend.
Plus if it's really just a minor upgrade, to a 4S, instead of the iPhone 5, maybe a full scale formal announcement really isn't necessary. It can still run the current OS, until iOS 5 is formally announced in the next month.
yes, if suddenly they added support for t-mobile and sprint. but it could also be something like upgrading / changing how their point-of-sale systems work to give an improved customer experience. that would make a lot of sense for a store anniversary, for example
why do they need to enter the console market? They already dominate the handheld market, which is a better thing to dominate. It may just be me, but I play games on my iphone far more often than I play stuff on any of my consoles.
Apple is very well positioned to take the console market by storm, but they need a year to spec up the hardware. The iPad is close to 360-level performance. Another 9x increase would put it potentially beyond.
Nothing indicates major product launch (ie, no leaks or rumours like any other major product launch). Maybe some kind of party and/or fun-time goodies for people to go and play with?
Um, since when do you have to lock your cell phone in a safe, sign an NDA, and get password-protected training files from Apple for a "fun-time party"?
You wouldn't expect to "receive hardware to install" for a software launch, other than a small number of posters, banners and other promotional paraphernalia.
It is just a rumor, but it's interesting that it seems to line up with stories that were floating around a couple weeks ago about Apple retail employees being told that they weren't going to be able to book vacation days in late May.
Usually those kinds of black-out dates have signalled product launches.
The thing that strikes me about this is that while all this is going on, there's no Stevenote scheduled. It's interesting that no one seems to realize how odd that is.
Not when you call it 'processor architectures'. Apple is a bit smarter than that when it comes to marketing. It won't be the MacBook Air with Sandy Bridge. It will be the MacBook Air S with 'more magic' inside.
Marginal improvements like this don't seem worthy of such an announcement. I'm sure a faster Macbook Air would be nice to have, but it's not profoundly different than the previous generation in terms of the value it provides to a consumer.
It's probably just a Macbook Air refresh. The MBA uses Intel Core 2 Duo and the Core 2 Duo's have been completely discontinued, with only a few being manufactured until the end of Q1 2011:http://www.cpu-world.com/news_2010/2010060901_Intel_to_disco....
Apple will have to move to Sandy Bridge at some point in the next year. Some may argue Apple is special and Intel will continue manufacturing things for them, but they have to move all their fabs to the 32nm process.
Also, the iMac and Macbook Pro were both refreshed recently getting Thunderbolt and the Sandry Bridge line.
Does an upgrade of the Macbook Air justify the current secret activity we see at the Apple stores? Employees not allowed to take vacation? Gigabytes of training materials distributed? Black curtains and mandatory meeting on next Sunday?
No, I think it must be something bigger. For example, the iConsole. Apple is going to compete with the XBox and the PS3.
I'd put my money on an entirely new Mac model. It's already known that the Mac Pro is being updated with a smaller form-factor, but there's still a space between it and the iMac that could stand to be filled. Something screen-less, more expandable than the Mini, but less powerful than the Mac Pro.
PCI slots are the new floppy drive: lot of people think they can't live without, they will scream bloody murder when Apple releases a new Mac Peo without PCI slots, but in reality Thunderbolt has just made internal PCI obsolete.
There will not be 3 models. A Mac Pro with PCI slots is just a temporary stop-gap like iPod Classic until all the PCI card vendors have transformed their products into external Thunderbolt devices.
The future will have a small Mac Mini and a big Mac Mini, the latter with the required cpu/ram for server purposes.
> But in reality Thunderbolt has just made internal PCI obsolete.
The current Thunderbolt implementation transfers up to 10 gigabits/second bi-directional. [1]
The current PCI-E X16 slots in the Mac Pro transfer up to 64 gigabits/second bi-directional. The future PCI-E X16 standard (3.0) has 128 gigabits/second bi-directional. [2]
Over the next decade, Thunderbolt transfer rates will reach 100 gigabits/second bi-directional. [3]
Thunderbolt is nowhere close to replacing PCI-E slots within computers.
Sadly, I don't think we'll ever see a matte screen iMac ever. The iMac is geared towards the consumer market, and the general consumer market prefers glossy screens.
While the Apple TV could certainly offer game features, its appearance doesn't appeal to the target audience (the Xbox and PS3 definately look much more exciting).
Therefore, Apple will probably have designed the iConsole in a somewhat more exciting look than the usual Apple products, which are all quite minimaistic (which I like, BTW).
They invested everything in building a few quantum computers in iPhone form factor. Each store gets one. Now they build an obstacle course that will eradicate half of mankind trying to buy it first.
