The Apple Store is 10 years old this week, but what is the mysterious hardware that Apple is launching to celebrate? Sealed orders have arrived at every Apple Store for new hardware to be unveiled this weekend, marking a decade of iPods, Geniuses and insane openings. Could it be the iPhone 4S or iPhone 5?
A variety of staff will be working overnight on Saturday into Sunday, when all staff are required to attend a meeting, Boy Genius Report reports.
The secrecy has reached George Smiley levels: staff have to lock their phones away and sign a contract not to tell anyone what's happening, black curtains are being put up around the stores, and the new hardware is being kept under lock and key. Even the training material downloaded from Apple headquarters is in a password-protected folder that can't be opened until Sunday.
The first Apple Store opened 10 years ago in Tysons Corner, Virginia -- it dropped the apostrophe in the early 1970s, grammar fans -- on 19 May 2001. The Regent Street branch in London was the first in Europe.
There are now more than 300 Apple Stores around the world, including four in China. The world's largest is right here in London -- click here for our tour of the Covent Garden Apple Store. There's even one in the Louvre, which prompted us to suggest some other unusual places Apple could set up shop.
Apple Stores are famous for their clean minimalist design, the Genius Bar for customer support,
and the wooden tables with computers and devices out for you to use. As
part of the minimalist approach, Apple did away with tills in 2006, and
now each member of staff uses a special iPod touch to take your payment. It's still "like working at McDonald's", though.
Image credit: youtalktome83
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bk93 17 May, 2011 18:51
They've just released the white iPhone 4, it would be difficult to imagine them releasing a product that has been recently altered to (i.e. iPhone 4). I would assume if Apple were to release a new product or update an existing model, it would be the iPod. Now that many consumers who were willing to purchase the white iPhone 4 from launch day a year ago would most likely have bought it last month. This makes it harder for them to buy another iPhone as I'm pretty sure many people are on at least a 12 month contract so upgrading/updating their handset would prove to be difficult. I think that Apple will put forward the next-gen iPhone at probably around september till November (according to various sources).
Anonymous 17 May, 2011 22:46
I was thinking i might be the white macbook, which is the only apple product that hasn't had a recent revamp.
Anonymous 18 May, 2011 04:43
I think it will be something like an NFC on the iPhone . So you can make payment with your iPhone
Grace Aldena 18 May, 2011 06:19
Time to say "Happy Birthday to Apple". We all gadget freaks are expecting some thing new and innovative, as always from Apple and when it is the time of Apple's Birthday, why not some thing extra ordinary...Keeping the fingers crossed for the launch of the next phone in the iPhone series. A combination of 12MP camera, 64 GB of memory, NFC enabled, available in many colours like the iPad 2 and all the new things which we can think of which can be there in a phone. Now that will be a perfect phone.
Anonymous 18 May, 2011 08:41
An actual apple tv? ..I think I'd be getting me one of those :-)
"apple tv" built in
"FaceTime" xD
Ummm...1080p HDTV? Apple will make it sound like they just brought that out! Lol
Or..just stick with my mac mini..does the same.
anonymous 18 May, 2011 09:21
I wouldn't have thought it would be a re-design of an existing product. If it was, the staff wouldn't need to be trained to use it.
I wouldn't have thought it would be a major new product either, things like new phones and computers are always announced ahead of time to build anticipation.
I can't think what it might be, but I will be down to the apple store on Monday to find out
anonymous 18 May, 2011 16:23
They just released the white iPhone 4 five minutes ago, so there's almost no chance of anything in the way of a new one.
Will they finally update the Classic? It's well over due a refresh and the Apple Store did launch just a few months prior to the first iPod...