There’s little doubt that Apple is up to something big in its retail stores this Sunday, May 22, including a companywide daily newspaper for employees dubbed “The Daily Download,” part of a new iPad-based initiative called “RetailMe.”
9to5Mac is reporting that Apple is launching a new daily newspaper for retail employees called The Daily Download, which appears to provide those staffers with constantly updated information on all things Cupertino. The internal publication is said to be “incredibly stylish and functional, and much better than the previous web-based version.”
The Daily Download is but one component that makes up Apple’s new iPad-based retail initiative in its stores. 9to5Mac actually got their hands on one of these “RetailMe” based iPads and discovered a handful of other internal apps installed there, including RetailMe, Apple Connect, Apple Directory, Concierge, Mobile Genius, iRepair and an Easy Pay app, likely to be the one employees will use when you make a purchase and quite possibly the only one the general public will get a glimpse of.
9to5Mac is also reporting that some sort of “huge download” is coming to Apple Stores over the weekend, which one of their sources seems to think is for installing Mac OS X Lion 10.7 onto store machines.
“The ‘gigs of data’ for Sunday, as far as I can tell from the general consensus around the store and some of my contacts is that we will in fact be downloading OS X Lion images and installing on all FOH machines for a Sunday launch,” the source reveals. “Nothing else fits since all other visual content has already been pulled from the Apple servers that we gather content from. Lion is the mutual feeling around the store, even from managers. Speaking of managers, they have been given a general idea about what is happening, but full details will be revealed to them on Friday evening.”
While this is easily dismissed as crazy talk, perhaps Apple is closer to launching Lion 10.7 than we think -- although it seems unlikely that it would happen before WWDC kicks off on June 6. If true, it could be a genius idea on Apple’s part -- show the general public the latest and greatest Mac OS X by letting them play with it themselves, and then pounce like a lion (pun intended) as early as next month with the real thing. Time will tell…
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(Image courtesy of 9to5Mac)
jiturra
May 20, 2011 at 7:53am
Yes! If this is true **crosses fingers** and everything seems to be pointing to something big... Lion will be huge and a consumer trial before release will be fantastic. Either way, I will be at my neighborhood Apple store sunday morning !
