What I don't understand is why the store has to go down for new products? Amazon doesn't have that problem and isn't there a certain loss of sales while the store is down?

The only positive I can take from this is for IT people dealing with their bosses. "Well, Apple does it".

At this point, it is all part of the buildup and drama or releasing new products. Creating a buzz.

Definitely.

We wouldn't be talking about it.

> What I don't understand is why the store has to go down for new products?

Hint: We are now here talking about it.

Right now, all over the world, there are hundreds of news outlets covering this "downtime". Also right now, thousand of users a refreshing the page to see whats coming.

I am pretty confident that they are not losing any money during this, quite the opposite ;)

I think Apple can get away with having their online store down for a few hours and not miss out on making money, unlike Amazon. Also as evidenced by this post it builds marketing hype.

Apple and Amazon are on the opposite ends of the e-commerce spectrum.

Amazon is about volume of sales, Apple is about hype and class.

It's just plain old marketing strategy. And one that has been working for quite a while.

Apple needs a radically new, practical product, either of the better (ie Project Titan, Viv-like, Zeiss smartglasses) or new category defining type, not for profitability reasons but for strategic/goodwill ones.

"Health Watch" that takes my temperature, checks blood-sugar, cortisol & blood pressure might be good too.

They'll do something with augmented reality for sure.

If they release new Macs without a keynote, it shows how much they don't care about the Mac anymore.

I don't care for a keynote. I want modern hardware with OS X on my desktop. If they release that online only, I am happy, too. What's the advantage of a keynote taking 1,5 hours, showcasing apps I'll never use and demoing projects that don't interest me?

From what I read, they're expected to release more iPads.

For sure there will be an event with a few journalists. Probably too late for something bigger.

As for caring, the iPod was introduced at a small event at Apple's headquarters. I don't know if the size of the venue has necessarily anything to do with the importance of the product.

Apple was still floundering when they inro'd the iPod.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kN0SVBCJqLs

It's remarkable how small the room was. But I don't think it was small due to exclusivity.

there have never been keynotes for refreshes (updated specs), only redesigns (new features and form factors)

An animated GIF. Really, Apple?

The site is not https but the GIF is. Some important GIF.

Why the down vote? It was a rumor that proved basically correct, as usual.

I wonder why the text has to be an image... :-/

Seems to be a gif

New MacPro would be earth shattering. Gonna happen?

More likely discontinuing MacPro and Mac Mini.

And announcing a reasonably priced mini-tower with a decent GPU and expansion slots.

What? I'm allowed to dream, right?

Its just a computer, no earth will be shattered.

No. Maybe a new iMac. Definitely new iPads.

To me the Apple Store is 'constantly down'. It happened so often that I had to wait over half a minute for some results that I shy away from the store altogether.