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Apple's online store becomes unavailable ahead of 'Hello Again' Mac event

As is par for the course, Apple's online store is unavailable in the hours leading up to a media presentation, with today's keynote expected to be headlined by a new, thinner MacBook Pro with OLED "Magic Toolbar" and USB-C ports.

"We've got something special in store for you," the Apple store read as of Thursday morning. "And we can't wait for you to see it. Please check back soon."

It's likely that preorders — or potential sales and shipping — of Apple's latest Macs could begin as soon as the keynote presentation ends. Things are scheduled to kick off at 10 a.m. Pacific, 1 p.m. Eastern.

The event will take place at Apple's corporate campus in Cupertino, Calif., and is expected to be the last media event at the current 1 Infinite Loop location. Early next year, Apple is scheduled to move into its new "spaceship" Campus 2 down the road.

AppleInsider will be there with live coverage and analysis from today's presentation.

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9 Comments

melgross

said about 7 years ago

We've complained about this before. It's hard to understand why the entire store needs to go down for hours before an event. I would think that, by now, Apple would have figured out how to just change the areas needed, and prepare everything so that it could be done in, say, 30 minutes.

rhinotuff

said about 7 years ago

melgross said:

We've complained about this before. It's hard to understand why the entire store needs to go down for hours before an event. I would think that, by now, Apple would have figured out how to just change the areas needed, and prepare everything so that it could be done in, say, 30 minutes.

I think it's more to curb the backlash of someone ordering a product that is updated two hours later ( I bought a MB Pro, then a new one came out with better specs). If they only killed the Macbook Pro ordering page, this would show people exactly what products were being updated before they were able to do it.

rare comment

said about 7 years ago

melgross said:

We've complained about this before. It's hard to understand why the entire store needs to go down for hours before an event. I would think that, by now, Apple would have figured out how to just change the areas needed, and prepare everything so that it could be done in, say, 30 minutes.

I agree. Given that Apple is one of the largest online retailers by dollar value, I imagine that their typical hourly sales are massive and that even losing a small percentage of buyers because the store is out is meaningful. Even weirder: iPhone is ~65% of their revenues. They are shutting down their entire store for, in some sense, a MAJORITY of their customers for a minority product (to be clear, we are an all Mac household for 30+ years). When is the last time Amazon had to shut down its store because it introduced a new category (let alone just added a few products which must happen many times a minute)? There must be a theory for this because it can't be impracticability.

wisbang

said about 7 years ago

Been waiting for a new MBP for a year now, just take my money already !

SpamSandwich

said about 7 years ago

melgross said:

We've complained about this before. It's hard to understand why the entire store needs to go down for hours before an event. I would think that, by now, Apple would have figured out how to just change the areas needed, and prepare everything so that it could be done in, say, 30 minutes.

I don't think it's a technical issue, it's called SHOWMANSHIP.

Like the store is holding its breath before an exciting announcement.

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