According to an anonymous report, six new Mac placeholder SKUs have appeared in Future Shop's inventory system. While we've been unable to independently verify this at this time, the placement of early "placeholder" part numbers is consistent with inventory practices of some major retailers.
In February, we saw MacBook Pro part numbers in Best Buy's systems about 3 weeks before the release of the new MacBook Pros. Future Shop is a Canadian subsidiary of Best Buy.
Apple has been rumored to be planning new releases for their laptops (and maybe iMacs) before the holidays. The last rumored date pinpointed October 14th for the launch.
Update: According to one BestBuy poster, these SKUs were set up without any knowledge from Apple with only the circulating expectations that Apple would be releasing notebooks in the near future. As a result, there can be no conclusions drawn from this inventory change, except what we already know, that Apple is expected to release new notebooks in the near future.
Tuesday November 19, 2024 12:12 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
Barclays analyst Tom O'Malley and his colleagues recently traveled to Asia to meet with various electronics manufacturers and suppliers. In a research note this week, outlining key takeaways from the trip, the analysts said they have "confirmed" that a fourth-generation iPhone SE with an Apple-designed 5G modem is slated to launch towards the end of the first quarter next year. In line with previo...
Sunday November 17, 2024 5:18 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple released the AirTag in April 2021, so it is now three over and a half years old. While the AirTag has not received any hardware updates since then, a new version of the item tracking accessory is rumored to be in development.
Below, we recap rumors about a second-generation AirTag.
Timing
Apple is aiming to release a new AirTag in mid-2025, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman....
Sunday November 17, 2024 3:03 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
While the Logitech MX Master 3 is a terrific mouse for the Mac, reports claiming that Apple CEO Tim Cook prefers that mouse over the Magic Mouse are false.
The Wall Street Journal last month published an interview with Cook, in which he said he uses every Apple product every day. Soon after, The Verge's Wes Davis attempted to replicate using every Apple product in a single day. During that...
Tuesday November 19, 2024 10:10 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple today released iOS 18.1.1 and iPadOS 18.1.1, minor updates to the iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 operating systems that debuted earlier in September. iOS 18.1.1 and iPadOS 18.1.1 come three weeks after the launch of iOS 18.1.
The new software can be downloaded on eligible iPhones and iPads over-the-air by going to Settings > General > Software Update. Apple has also released iOS 17.7.2 for...
Wednesday November 20, 2024 3:42 am PST by Tim Hardwick
AT&T has begun displaying "Turbo" in the iPhone carrier label for customers subscribed to its premium network prioritization service, according to reports on Reddit. The new indicator seems to have started appearing after users updated to iOS 18.1.1, but that could be just coincidence.
Image credit: Reddit user No_Highlight7476
The Turbo feature provides enhanced network performance through ...
Monday November 18, 2024 1:07 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
In a research note with Hong Kong-based investment bank Haitong today, obtained by MacRumors, Apple analyst Jeff Pu said he agrees with a recent rumor claiming that the so-called "iPhone 17 Air" will be around 6mm thick.
"We agreed with the recent chatter of an 6mm thickness ultra-slim design of the iPhone 17 Slim model," he wrote.
If that measurement proves to be accurate, there would be ...
Tuesday November 19, 2024 10:52 am PST by Juli Clover
The iOS 18.1.1, iPadOS 18.1.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1.1 updates that Apple released today address JavaScriptCore and WebKit vulnerabilities that Apple says have been actively exploited on some devices.
With the JavaScriptCore vulnerability, processing maliciously crafted web content could lead to arbitrary code execution. The WebKit vulnerability had the same issue with maliciously crafted...
I helped set these skus up. They were set up with no information or assistance from Apple. These were set up as the same time as a long list of placeholders for iPods for the "Let's Rock" event - we weren't sure if there were computers coming at the same time (as you can see in the thread in the Future Shop forums).
So to recap:
* We setup a bunch of skus.
* We did so without input from Apple.
* We did it to be prepared for when new product launches because we find out at exactly the same time you do. Sometimes we get a "you'll see X number of new laptops" but that's the extent of it.
* We also did it because we wanted to make sure that we weren't setting skus up in the same time frame that they were going to launch because inevitably someone with a camera phone is going to see them in the system and be a little overzealous and fire off a cropped, poorly compressed photo of our inventory system to engadget/gizmodo/macrumors/appleinsider and we figured if we set them up in advance we can avoid tipping Apple's hand in the future. Yes, we're that considerate of our partners. Phew.
