Apple Stores Preparing Secrets for WWDC Announcement

Apple's annual World Wide Developers Conference is just around the corner and, thanks to the recent release of the show's schedule, excitement is mounting for the event. Adding an extra dash of anticipation are rumors that Apple Store employees are busying preparing for WWDC, too. Of course, WWDC doesn't have much to do with Apple's retail outlets, with the conference itself taking place in San Francisco's Moscone Center, so what's going on?

AppleInsider reports that some Apple Store staff members will be working late nights ahead of June's conference, with some stores receiving special surprise visits from Apple corporate. With the iPhone 5 not expected for another few months, we're left wondering what Apple Store employees could be preparing for. If we were to hazard a guess, we'd say new MacBooks are the most likely product to be unveiled at WWDC. Ivy Bridge MacBooks with Retina Displays have long been rumored for launch this summer, while the iPhone 5 is widely believed to be coming this September, around the same time the iPhone 4S was announced last year. Of course, there's also a possibility that Apple will finally launch its own-brand HDTV, which people have been referring to as 'Apple TV' over the last few months.

Perhaps more interestingly, AI is also reporting on separate claims that network engineers from Apple's retail headquarters in Cupertino visited several stores with a black box, disappeared into the server rooms and then left without telling anyone what they had been up to. According to AppleInsider, it's speculated that the engineers transferred a large amount of data to the stores' servers.

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