Apple’s latest iOS devices are set to go on sale in just a few hours at 12AM PT/3AM ET and as usual the company has taken its online store offline to prepare for the release. The store will stay down until pre-orders open later tonight.
Apple’s Personal Pickup service – where you place your order online but can pick it up from a local Apple Store as early as an hour later – just hit six more European countries today: France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden.
Long limited to the U.S. only, it made its way to Australia and Canada a couple of weeks ago, and the UK a few days later. German site Macerkopf first noticed its availability in Germany, before updating with the additional five countries.
Personal Pickup can be a useful option if you’re in a hurry, allowing you to get your hands on a product the same day while minimizing the amount of time you spend fighting the crowds in an Apple Store.
The Apple Store is down, in preparation for announcements later today at Apple’s Spring Forward event. The store going down is a very strong indicator that something new will be available to buy after the event is over — but what products? The most likely answer is new MacBooks.
There is also the potential of Apple Watch preorders, although these are more likely to take place in a couple of weeks, assuming an April launch.
Apple has just launched a new special offer through its online store for Fathers Day offering free shipping on all purchases through Thursday, May 29th. While the company typically provides free shipping for orders $50 and up, this limited-time special covers everything that may not reach that price point, such as cases or other accessories.
Not only is this great offer just in time to help you get just the right gift for your dad, but it could also potentially help Apple clear out a little extra merchandise ahead of its WWDC conference early next month, where the company is expected to announce some new hardware alongside its redesigned OS X operating system and updated iOS mobile platform.
Today, Apple has taken the wraps off of a version of its Apple Online Store for Turkey. Apple is promoting the new store with a large banner at the top of the site. The store is now being promoted on Apple’s homepage in Turkey, and it is also accessible at its direct link here.
This Apple Online Store for Turkey represents Apple’s first official sales presence in the country other than authorized resellers. Earlier this year, we noted that Apple is set to open up a large physical retail store in Turkey in 2014…
As first spotted by our friends over at German language publication Macerkopf.de, Apple appears to be rolling out an option to make purchases on the Apple Online Store using PayPal. The feature appears to be limited to Germany currently, but it could mark the start of a broader roll out to other users.
Apple has never been opposed to offering the option to use PayPal for some services. Users in the U.S. have long been able to setup PayPal as a payment option for their Apple ID on the desktop, allowing them to purchase iTunes content with PayPal on iTunes & the Mac App Store. Apple does, however, already support PayPal payments for its online store in China.
It also allows its education customers to use PayPal for volume purchases of iOS apps, but the privilege didn’t extend to making purchases from the online store at Apple.com.
Apple’s help page for payments and tax information in Germany now explains how users can opt for PayPal at checkout, but we’ve yet to find the feature live in other countries that we’ve tested.
Users will not have to setup their PayPal as their payment option for their Apple ID, instead they will be redirected to log in using their PayPal username and password at the time of purchase:
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From 9to5toys.com (Twitter, Feed, Facebook), today:
Apple today started offering a couple new models of its latest generation iMac through its refurbished online store. Previously Apple was offering refurbished units of the new 21.5-inch iMac only, but we hadn’t seen any 27-inch models hit yet, which we assumed was likely due to yield issues and significant delays experienced in the iMac’s first few months of launch. Today Apple has finally started offering both the entry level 27-inch iMac and the higher end iMac, in addition to a couple of BTO models. However, taking tax into account, you might be about to score a new one for around the same price…
You might not be able to entirely beat Apple’s refurbished price, but taking the tax into account, you can almost get a brand new 27-inch iMac for the same price. 9to5Toys breaks it down.
For instance, the high end 3.2GHz model is currently available for $100 off on Amazon for $1,899. If you’re paying 8% tax on the refurb unit, that brings your total up to $1834.92. In many cases, buying new for around the same price or slightly more might be worth your while.
After improving to “3-5 days” shipping time in most major markets late last month, the iPad mini is today listed as in stock for all models in at least the United States, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, and Canada. Some other stores, such as the United Kingdom’s online store, is still quoting an estimated shipping time of “1-3 business days”, but Apple’s listing of the device as in stock in the U.S. likely means the company is starting to catch up with demand. At Apple’s earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook noted that the iPad mini remains constrained and high in demand. He also noted that Apple would significantly increase the supply but wasn’t sure if it would reach a supply/demand balance on iPad mini during the current quarter.
“we sold 23 million iPads, we obviously could have sold more than this because we could not build enough iPad minis to come into a demand balance… Im sure there was some cannibalization of Macs there.”
Current ordering options for Indonesian customers on www.apple.com/id
Apple plans to create an online retail presence in Indonesia, according to a report from NZWeek (via TNW), as well as open its first retail location in the country with a new store in the capital city, Jakarta. Confirmation of the investment comes from the country’s Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM). It has approved Apple’s application to open up shop in the country, and the report claimed Apple is looking to invest $2 million to $3 million USD in the capital city of Jakarta to open its first brick-and-mortar retail location.
[tweet https://twitter.com/marioyohanes/status/292821729573756928]
Just last month, Apple started selling the iPhone 5 in close to 50 new countries including Indonesia. The country also started receiving access to iTunes music and movies last month with the rollout of the service to 56 new countries.
As noted in the report, Foxconn is investing $10 billion USD to open a new hardware manufacturing plant in Indonesia with construction slated to kick off this year. TNW pointed out that Apple actually sold products in Indonesia from 2008 to 2010 before stopping due to difficulties with shipping out of Singapore.