Apple Inc. Store Is Down Before iPhone 8, Watch Series 3 Event

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The big day is finally here. The Apple Store has been taken down as Tim Cook and Company prepare to put new products up for sale following the keynote speech later today. It’s the first event held at the Steve Jobs Theater at Apple’s new spaceship headquarters. The company is expected to reveal the widely-rumored iPhone X, iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, Apple Watch Series 3, a new Apple TV and other gadgets.

Apple Store: We’ll be back

A visit to the online Apple Store brings a simple message that’s become tradition over the years. It simply says: “We’ll be back. We’re busy updating the Apple Store for you. Please check back soon.”

Apple fans usually enjoy the tradition of the Apple Store being taken down before an event, sort of like children enjoying Christmas Eve traditions before the main event on Christmas morning. In this case, the Apple Store won’t come back up until after the keynote at today’s event is finished. The iPhone maker has scheduled the event at 10 a.m. Pacific. You can stream the event on the Safari browser on your iOS device with iOS 9 or later or a Mac running on macOS v10.11 or later. Windows 10 users can also stream the Apple event on their PCs using the Microsoft Edge browser. The last option to stream the event is the Apple TV: a second- or third-generation model running on software 6.2 or later or a fourth-generation Apple TV.

iPhone X, iPhone 8/ 8 Plus, Apple Watch, Apple TV and more

Of course, the iPhone X will be the center of excitement at the Apple event today, so we can expect the company to save that for last. Someone leaked some unreleased iOS 11 code over the weekend, and that spilled the beans on most of the iPhone X’s features, including its name. It provided confirmation of some details and a few new ones. We also learned that the two standard models will be called the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus.

Because of that leak, some fans may feel that today’s event will be rather anticlimactic, but Apple management is pretty good about putting on a show. They will probably still wow the crowd using ARKit, the augmented reality feature that’s rolling out in iOS 11. Developers have been having fun creating AR apps since WWDC over the summer, and we’ve seen a lot of great ones come out so far.

The Apple Watch 3 is also expected to make an appearance at today’s event. We’ve heard that it could get LTE, which would set it free from the iPhone because users would be able to make calls on it. Apple management will probably make a show out of demonstrating that too.

We’re also looking for a new 4K Apple TV, more information about the HomePod, and updates to the Mac desktops.

Prepare for the price and release dates

One thing we still don’t know is how much Apple will charge for this year’s iPhones. This year has seen a lot of price increases across smartphone brands, so it wouldn’t be a surprise if Apple raises its prices to $1,000 or more. The rumor mill has pretty much prepared fans for a $1,000 price tag on the iPhone X anyway. In addition to the price, we will probably find out the release dates. We’ve been hearing that the iPhone X could be released later than the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus or that the iPhone X will launch with extreme supply constraints.

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