Mysterious overnight activity at Apple stores presages Thursday's Mac event
At least some Apple stores across the U.S. -- including its Union Square outlet in San Francisco -- reportedly set up line barriers on Wednesday night, and/or saw unusual activity behind their glass facades.
Image Credit: wollae on Reddit
At the Union Square store, the barriers were accompanied by contractors making laser measurements and pointing to the building's glass doors, one Reddit commentor noted. When asked, one of the contractors allegedly said "sorry, can't say anything" with a grin. Some bags in the building are said to have "SFO" airline tags on them, implying that people had just flown in.
Similar activity was spotted at other Apple stores in Hawaii and Indianapolis, according to follow-up posts.
It's not clear what the activity might mean. Line barriers could imply Apple is expecting to launch an important new product following Thursday's Mac event, but Mac launches aren't typically blockbusters, and the company tends not to have a new product in stores the same day as a press event.
Perhaps more likely is that the company is preparing to install new product displays, though if so, that may not explain the barriers.
The focus of today's event -- starting at 10 a.m. Pacific time -- is expected to be redesigned MacBook Pros, including OLED touchbars and Touch ID sensors. The company may also show off a 13-inch MacBook or MacBook Air, however, and new Apple TV software, including a guide/recommendation app and delayed single sign-on support.
AppleInsider will be live at the event to provide play-by-play coverage.
Image Credit: wollae on Reddit
At the Union Square store, the barriers were accompanied by contractors making laser measurements and pointing to the building's glass doors, one Reddit commentor noted. When asked, one of the contractors allegedly said "sorry, can't say anything" with a grin. Some bags in the building are said to have "SFO" airline tags on them, implying that people had just flown in.
Similar activity was spotted at other Apple stores in Hawaii and Indianapolis, according to follow-up posts.
It's not clear what the activity might mean. Line barriers could imply Apple is expecting to launch an important new product following Thursday's Mac event, but Mac launches aren't typically blockbusters, and the company tends not to have a new product in stores the same day as a press event.
Perhaps more likely is that the company is preparing to install new product displays, though if so, that may not explain the barriers.
The focus of today's event -- starting at 10 a.m. Pacific time -- is expected to be redesigned MacBook Pros, including OLED touchbars and Touch ID sensors. The company may also show off a 13-inch MacBook or MacBook Air, however, and new Apple TV software, including a guide/recommendation app and delayed single sign-on support.
AppleInsider will be live at the event to provide play-by-play coverage.
Comments
Seriously?
Would you you really expect queuing on Announcement Day?
It seems a bit odd to me.
iMac released 1998
iPod released 2001
iPhone released 2007
iPad released 2010
Apple Watch released 2015
There has always been time gaps between new product releases.
As for excitement I was quite pleased with the release of the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil – a potential game changer for creatives who use Wacom tablets.
Unfortunately you seem to find the negatives rather than the positives when it comes to Tim Cook and his team. Steve Jobs chose Cook as his successor so I'm sure he felt he was the right person to lead.
You seem to believe stock prices are the most important representation on how Tim Cook is doing, when it's quite clear that Wall Street are manipulating the stock and undervaluing Apple.
We shall wait and see what is released today... with hope there will be something new that will excite you.
S-eeeriously.
Something tells me not much would get you excited with such a dark view on the world.
To the broader point, here's how these things go.
All the way back into when Steve Jobs was around, Apple would, a couple times a year, do one of these events. Most of the time, the announcements were about updates and incremental improvements to the existing product line. Occasionally (very occasionally), there would be an announcement of a new 'thing.' Apple fans would of course be excited about all of these announcements.
The critics, however, would alternate between bellyaching about incrementalism when the announcement was about updates, and being incredibly unimpressed at the new 'thing,' when that was the announcement. "Who would want an ipod? MP3 players already exist, and they're not locked into Apple's ecosystem." "Who would want an iPhone? It has no physical keyboard, and isn't serious like a Blackberry." "Who would want an iPad? It's just an over-sized iPhone that won't fit in your pocket,and it's too limited because it doesn't run OSX. Also- wasn't iPad a hilarious SNL sketch about Apple-branded feminine hygiene products?" "Who would want an Apple Watch? There are already FitBits and the AW is tethered to your iPhone." etc., etc.
We've got it. Since this is expected to be an update announcement, you're gearing up to be unimpressed by incrementalism, and you're probably also a little disappointed that it's not going to be an announcement of a whole new product that you can find underwhelming (..underwhelming now, mind you, but in a few years, will praise as incredibly innovative in comparison to whatever you're unimpressed with then....).
Steve Jobs was one of the great surfers in industrial history. He rode a wave called Personal Computing, which in turn was driven by an ocean storm called Large Scale Integrated circuitry (LSI — an old term, look it up). Jony Ive is also riding this wave, along with his crew, Apple's other, unsung hardware and software geniuses, and the great global tacticians who orchestrate production, Tim Cook, Jeff Williams, and others we don't know about.
Jobs, Ive and the hard- and software people at Apple have been inventing portable personal computing like no one else cared enough to do. They discovered, Jobs initially, the key ingredient was to think of the user first and make the tool desirable and easy to use. Still no one else gets this, because it's essentially a state of mind invented in the 60s and 70s of countercultural California, where personal mental freedom merged with personal electronics.
Apple is a huge global machine founded on the wave that's putting perfected computing devices in our hands for our personal power. It's now as unstoppable as Daimler-Benz became a hundred years ago. The perceived "drought" in exciting product releases are entirely dependent on available tecnnology, not on any mysterious, waning spirit of "innovation" (stupid business-school word).
When 3D transparent displays can be worn as glasses, or when the Watch can make calls and send pictures, when the environment can be sensed, captured and computed upon for our benefit, who is on track to bring out the groundbreaking products? Samsung? Google? Microsoft? Don't make stupid errors of history or evolution. Only Apple is working on the LSI.
1. releasing the iPhone 6ss (I assume you mean iPhone 7 because they did not change the form factor, still going to buy 7 of them earlier next week for my company)
2. Apple Watch crappy interface, nothing really innovative (Agreed, just compare it to a superior interface like Microsoft's offering oh wait, discontinued, maybe get the flat tire instead?)
3. AppleTV. Nothing new. Just a roku (My household consumes all our media via Apple TV, what exactly needs to change it does what it was designed to do)
4. No home hub (Apple TV 4 does that with my August lock)
5. No touch screen Mac's (Look how well that's reinvigorated the PC market)
6. No Apple brand TV display (OK maybe a point here, LG got my dollars when I would have bough an Apple branded TV no questions)
Should Apple aggressively take risk with their cash horde, you know maybe the Google approach. I mean Alphabet, or aka "Google separated from all it's losing divisions", all of it's Moonshots and acquisitions. Boston Dynamics, Motorola, Nest, Google Fiber, etc all of these big bets were basically throw crap at a wall cash burns. Pixel is the latest addition to the bonfire, though it's demise might be slightly delayed due to the overwhelming, some might say explosive, success of another company that was taking aggressive risk to beat out the competition. After all it is unrealistic to assume Apple will pickup all of their lost business.
Microsoft and Google have hubris in spades, that's why they are trying to go toe to toe with Apple on price. They also have both watched most of their "partners" dwindle into obscurity in a race to the bottom. The only winner in that race is China, not because it's a race worth winning but because of no copyright laws, a favorable domestic government agenda and rock bottom wages. Even Samsung's starting to be out Samsung'ed by Chinese companies and that's quite a feat. I'm not even going to address the new Microsoft offerings that no one will buy, though I'm quite sure they will ship a lot for IDC to report.
Yes you are, for the most part, alone in your line of thinking. It really sounds like your stock bets haven't been working out. Your pretty much always pro Apple until the stock doesn't go to $150, then it's Cook's incompetent, Apple can't innovate, not investing enough ... Benghazi. Come on man, your flip flopping more than politicians supporting Trump.