14 DAY TRIAL // Surprise, surprise! Two weeks after holding its annual Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple is carrying out maintenance on its web store, suggesting that new stuff will be added to its virtual shelves.
Apple usually takes the store offline for maintenance ahead of holidays and celebrations like Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day. But ever so rarely the company schedules an outage to update the store with new product listings, such as a new version of an existing product or even an all-new release.
This time around there’s little to speculate about. The iPhone will be ceremoniously refreshed in a few months, the iPad is also important enough to deserve stage time (rather than just a press release and a new store listing), and the iPod range seems to have been left behind, so there’s not much hope for a refresh on that front either.
However, the Mac business is in line to get some hardware upgrades. Recent discoveries have pointed to an upcoming range of iMacs with faster processors. There are even rumors that the all-in-one computer is getting a Retina display at long last.
Other rumors say the notebook family will be blessed with a 12-inch Retina-equipped MacBook Air. And there’s even talk of a new hybrid iPad Pro that uses its Smart Cover as a keyboard, much like the Surface Pro.
One prominent company watcher was recently cited as saying that Apple will drop the price on its iMac computers, further giving competition a run for their money. The iMac will certainly remain expensive even with a couple of hundred notes shaved off, but a price cut is always welcome, regardless of how small it is.
Any processor upgrades will be relatively minor. Word has it that the iMac family will get a mere 100MHz spike.
And let’s not forget about the Mac mini, Apple’s cheapest desktop Mac. Available in regular and server configurations, these babies are also poised to receive some processor upgrades, perhaps even more storage. It’s been quite a while since Apple last upgraded the mini.
Things you can safely take off your wish list for today are the iWatch and the rumored iTV. Apple will not unveil these with a simple web store outage.
We’ll be updating this story soon with any new things we notice on Apple’s store the second it’s back online. In the meanwhile, leave your thoughts and wishes in the comments section below. What would you like to see released today?
Update: Apple's online store is back up featuring cheaper iMacs. Click the link to get the full scoop.