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Apple hints at major App Store announcements ahead of iPhone event

An early morning tweet from one of Apple's official accounts suggests that the App Store will be a major focus of today's special event, lending support to long-running rumors that the marketplace would expand to an all-new Apple TV.

"Today is going to be big. Watch the keynote starting at 10 a.m. PT," the official @AppStore account tweeted early Wednesday. The message was retweeted by the relatively new @AppStoreGames, but no other official Apple account —  save for a single two-week-old tweet from marketing chief Phil Schiller —  had even mentioned the event at press time.

Apple's marketing efforts are painstakingly orchestrated, and promoting today's event primarily to the App Store audience is almost certainly intentional.

Alongside new iPhones and a possible jumbo iPad, Apple is widely expected to unveil a brand new Apple TV that will include an App Store of its own. The company is rumored to have begun inviting select developers —  including Twitter —  to create third-party apps designed to run on televisions.

With the event just hours away, the traditional canary in the coal mine of new Apple products has also appeared —  the Apple online store is down.

Apple will stream the event live to iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, and second- and third-gen Apple TV units starting at 10 a.m. Pacific. For the first time in years, Windows users will be able to join in, provided they are running Microsoft Edge on Windows 10.

AppleInsider will also be on hand in San Francisco and will bring live coverage from inside the venue. You can receive all of the breaking news as it happens by installing the official AppleInsider app for iPhone and iPad.