In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past week, Apple is hosting a media event tomorrow at its Cupertino campus. The blogosphere has been buzzing over rumored announcements, but everyone is more interested in the new iPhone itself.
With the keynote now within 24 hours, it’s time for everyone to place their last-minute bets. What will it look like? How will it measure up to previous devices? And when will it be available? Macgasm seems to think it will hit the shelves tomorrow…
Typically, when Apple announces a product, it gives the press a week or two to build up buzz before launching it with the carriers. But for some reason, Macgasm believes that the new iPhone will be available tomorrow, right after Apple’s announcement.
This prediction is based on information the site has received from “several sources” that Verizon is encouraging its call center staff (in Salt Lake City) to work overtime tomorrow in order to deal with the aftermath of the iPhone event.
“Why anyone in their right mind would extend their workday at a call center is beyond me, but it’s clear that Verizon is expecting something big to drop THAT DAY. I honestly was not expecting a product to drop on Tuesday, but just an announcement for something to come later that week/month. However, Verizon appears to be bracing themselves for a lot of orders and device activations.”
Like Cult of Mac, we’re pretty skeptical of this information. It just doesn’t vibe well with previous Apple releases, and really doesn’t make any sense. Verizon could very well be asking staff to put in overtime, but it’s probably for other reasons.
Pre-orders? Perhaps. It’s possible that Apple could say “and it’s available for preorder today,” but it’s not likely. The fact is, carriers deal with hundreds of iPhone-related questions on a normal day, so they’re likely to see a spike in that tomorrow.
Of course, the extra staff might be on hand to field iPhone 4 orders. There have been rumors of the iPhone 4 dropping to under $100, and of an even cheaper model coming with an 8GB hard drive. That could all go down tomorrow. Stay tuned.