As May marches on, the summer rumor mill is starting to crank up in Apple land. Word came out today that Apple is planning on having an all-hands employee meeting in US retail stores on Sunday, May 22, but what could be in store?
According to macstories, a tip was received from a trusted source regarding the meeting, and that it would start at 7 AM, considered an "unusual time," as Apple tends to hold a meeting of this sort on Sunday evenings, once stores close.
It's unknown however, as to what this meeting is entailing. Potential speculation could be around: WWDC kicking off in San Francisco on June 6, Apple could be training employees for the oft-mentioned new MobileMe or iCloud, or perhaps another product. Of course though, Apple is also celebrating the 10th anniversary of their Retail function this week, and several websites have claimed that Apple was planning on setting up special events and store merchandise for the anniversary.
BGR was also able to provide some more details on the meeting:
During the overnight shift, it's going to be required that employees lock cell phones in the main office. They will also have to sign an NDA with Apple.
There are a wide variety of roles, we're told, for the overnight shift. This includes all visuals staff, a manager, a business team member, a few Genius team members, one back-of-house employee, and a few generic Apple specialists.
Apple stores have apparently already received hardware to install, and are expecting more hardware to come on Friday or Saturday. All materials that Apple stores have received have been instructed to be under lock and key until after close on Saturday night.
Apple employees will be putting up black curtains at all stores so that people walking outside cannot see inside.
Employees have had to download gigabytes of data from Apple corporate labeled, "training" in a password-protected zipped folder that won't be accessible to managers or anyone else until Saturday afternoon.
What do you make of this potential meeting readers? New products? Tenth anniversary celebrations? iCloud? Feel free to speculate below!
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ilikeimac
May 17, 2011 at 1:56pm
To be a bit anti-climactic, what if it's simply a redesign of the store furniture, floor layout, etc. in honor of the 10th anniversary? Microsoft has kinda ripped off the current look for their own stores, so Apple might have decided on a new look to stay ahead. Maybe the new floor plan will make it easier to lock down all the Macs so all these smash-and-grab thieves will need more than 60 seconds to snatch arm-fulls of MacBooks.
5n4r35
May 16, 2011 at 11:55pm
I really don't think it's the Cloud service of any kind. That would be great but why would they need all hands on deck to train on a Cloud service? Just doesn't make sense. I think it has to do with there hardware. My guess would be there announcing the unlocking of the iPhone to work on Sprint and Verizon. It's about this time we get a new iPhone. While it isn't "new" an unlocked iPhone would be huge. You would get quite a few people from T-mo and Sprint that couldn't get it before now able to get there paws on some iPhone love. While the cloud service could have a nice segway( Today is our 10th year of Retail stores...Now we move into the Stores for the next decade online...blah blah blah. ) I think that that wouldn't require tons of training. Well not an emergency mode thing like this, or at least how the media, is making it sound. Probably training on different Carriers there plans and troubleshoot. Also flashing CDMA phone to work on either network. Plus people to handle customers. That sounds like something more plausable to me. It may be wrong but I would love it being on a small regional carrier. I would like to get an iPhone and really don't want to void the warranty to get it to work.
ilikeimac
May 17, 2011 at 1:51pm
Given the ease with which Apple Stores handled the demand for the Verizon iPhone, I doubt they would pull all-night shifts and conduct all-hands meetings to handle T-Mobile and Sprint flavors. But it's very clear that you want an unlocked iPhone badly, so good luck in getting one.
P.S. Check eBay.
