BestBuy

Update: This appears to be a mistake

Discovered by This is my next, an internal Best Buy document points to an ‘Apple Fixture Installation’ Friday, October 21st. Interestingly, this date lines up with the mid-October range that’s being tossed around for the iPhone 5 release.

This is my next’s source says that a manager being at the store at 6 A.M. to open the doors is out of the ordinary, seeing as they usually get there at 7 A.M. The source also said that this similar procedure happened with the iPhone 4 launch. Best Buy managers have a meeting scheduled on October 10th to talk “upcoming BIG release dates”. Sounds fishy, huh? If these reports and precedent are correct, we can expect the device to land early Friday morning.

Apple is rumored to be hosting a press event at the end of September where they’ll announce the iPhone 5, and officially release iOS 5. You’ll remember our report that Apple will release the iPhone 5 October 7th, which is also a Friday. In terms of carriers, WSJ is reporting that Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint will be getting their hands on the device.

Also, of note: October 23rd (Sunday) will be the tenth anniversary of the introduction of the iPod. Video after the break:

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9to5mac partner Dealnews today publishes price trends research showing that the best time to buy a Mac might not be at launch.  Tax issues aside, even waiting a few days for Amazon and other outlets to carry new Macs can save a hundred bucks or more.

We’ll of course have any announcements, should they happen tomorrow and links to products as soon as they become available.

As always, keep an eye on 9to5toys.com for up to the minute deals on Apple products and accessories.
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We’ve been hearing reports of minor – not severe – white MacBook constraints as early as last week. The white MacBooks are not even close to as constrained as the MacBook Air and the Mac mini – which is in fact constrained as well – but the process leading up to a product refresh is booting up. Now, we’ve discovered that Best Buy is marking the $999 white MacBooks as “backordered” in their systems.

This is the same system that currently marks the constrained Mac minis as “backordered,” as we reported two weeks ago. Looking deeper into BestBuy’s online store, the major Apple reseller is quoted new white MacBook shipments between July 15th and July 27th. We’re not saying that this backordered status means a refresh for the MacBook, as this can just be indicative of Apple loading OS X Lion – rumored to be launching in mid-July – on to the consumer notebooks. More after the break:

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