As noted by Italian site Macitynet.it [Google translation], promotional materials for OS X Lion have begun appearing in third-party retail stores, with a location of retail store chain Euronics displaying a large free-standing banner as well as smaller table-top signage highlighting the new multi-touch gesture support found in OS X Lion.
The new signage advertises OS X Lion as being "now on all new Macs" and encourages users to "take a tour" of the new operating system. The machines on display have not, however, been updated to Lion yet.
Meanwhile, other signage promoting the sale of standard App Store gift cards to cover the purchase of OS X Lion has also popped up in at least one store of Dutch retail chain Dixons. Gift cards not only allow customers to effectively purchase OS X Lion for others, but also provide those without a credit card with a means to purchase content from the Mac App Store and Apple's other digital stores.
Numerous sources have indicated that Apple's retail stores are planning "overnights" tonight in which staff will change out promotional materials and update other aspects of the store layouts. Tonight's activities are presumably related in large part to OS X Lion, as the stores have reportedly received hard drives containing the new operating system. Other reports have claimed that Apple will indeed be releasing OS X Lion and new MacBook Air models tomorrow.
Update: The Macitynet.it report has been pulled by request. We have also received word that the Euronics location has removed its prematurely-posted Lion signage.
Chupa, you don't think they would put an outdated MBA photo in a Lion release banner, do you?
The hype around Lion is drowning out the fact that we don't have enough solid info on the MBA and that portion of the picture is actually the bigger news story.
I think we've got a very serious problem with expectations around the MBA and it's going to be almost crushing if it's released with lower than 4GB of RAM as that will indicate that the pricing isn't "real." You'll need 4GB of RAM to run Lion and the cost of additional RAM will push the costs of the new MBA up closer to where Sony's new "MBA killer" is landing price-wise.
The MBA will still get purchased in high numbers but the lack of TB, no backlit keyboard, and insufficient RAM are going to put a major dent in sales.
I also fully expect Lion will release at least a week before the MBA which is going to be problematic for quite a few people especially since it's rumored that the MBA will be Apple store only.
That means that the crowds to get Lion will have to return if they also want the MBA on the 27th. The forced march to the Apple stores twice in one week will grate on people.
The reason Apple pulled MBA sales from Best Buy and other resellers is they want to keep all the margin for themselves - which is fine but the Apple stores aren't nearly sufficient enough for everyone.
I see danger and peril written all over this.
Dude shut up. You have no idea what you're talking about and you're trying to freak everybody out.
Show me a picture where you can clearly see there is no backlight...or thunderbolt...etc.
Why would Best Buy have no Airs for a week?
Lion and MBA's are coming out tomorrow whether you like it or not. Stop trolling.
Wednesday April 24, 2024 3:39 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Apple today released several open source large language models (LLMs) that are designed to run on-device rather than through cloud servers. Called OpenELM (Open-source Efficient Language Models), the LLMs are available on the Hugging Face Hub, a community for sharing AI code. As outlined in a white paper [PDF], there are eight total OpenELM models, four of which were pre-trained using the...
Wednesday April 24, 2024 2:05 pm PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple is set to unveil iOS 18 during its WWDC keynote on June 10, so the software update is a little over six weeks away from being announced. Below, we recap rumored features and changes planned for the iPhone with iOS 18. iOS 18 will reportedly be the "biggest" update in the iPhone's history, with new ChatGPT-inspired generative AI features, a more customizable Home Screen, and much more....
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
Apple has dropped the number of Vision Pro units that it plans to ship in 2024, going from an expected 700 to 800k units to just 400k to 450k units, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Orders have been scaled back before the Vision Pro has launched in markets outside of the United States, which Kuo says is a sign that demand in the U.S. has "fallen sharply beyond expectations." As a...
Apple is finally planning a Calculator app for the iPad, over 14 years after launching the device, according to a source familiar with the matter. iPadOS 18 will include a built-in Calculator app for all iPad models that are compatible with the software update, which is expected to be unveiled during the opening keynote of Apple's annual developers conference WWDC on June 10. AppleInsider...
Best Buy is discounting a collection of M3 MacBook Pro computers today, this time focusing on the 14-inch version of the laptop. Every deal in this sale requires you to have a My Best Buy Plus or Total membership, although non-members can still get solid second-best prices on these MacBook Pro models. Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Best Buy. When you click a link and make a...
Top Rated Comments
See what I did there..:D
Buzz kill.
And don't forget to yell at the kids to get off your lawn.
Dude shut up.
You have no idea what you're talking about and you're trying to freak everybody out.
Show me a picture where you can clearly see there is no backlight...or thunderbolt...etc.
Why would Best Buy have no Airs for a week?
Lion and MBA's are coming out tomorrow whether you like it or not.
Stop trolling.
I see you all the time on MacRumours, and you're such an idiot.
That's $29 IF you're a student AND IF you have Windows Vista.
So no. Windows 7 is not $29. And even if it were, I wouldn't use it if they paid me $29.
I tested tons of pornography on Lion and it all worked fine.
So you can all upgrade with no problems. Your stuff will work.