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Time to haul in the boxes of special products...

Or they need to do some housekeeping and work on the glass cube/stairs/elevator.

Someone should scope out what's going on in and around there this afternoon. Maybe since the store is 24 hour, they need to shut down to prep the employees with iPhone 2.0 information? Usually this would be done after hours, right?

May 29, 08 - 10:22 am Comment from: Macintosh

Probably some sort of networking / power supply upgrades...

Sewer leak.

Probably a rat or cockroach infestation in the office cafeteria.

May 29, 08 - 10:34 am Comment from: Aldebaran

@CHrisM

Uh...because they are open 24/7, there are NO "after hours."

@ Alderbran

I think that was his point.

Well, the building next to it was just sold for some ridiculous amount... So perhaps that has something to do with it.

@Aldebaran

I think that was ChrisM's point. Since there are NO after hours, they had to make special arrangements to close the store.

May 29, 08 - 10:39 am Comment from: Predrag

I step back and look at this article and can't help but think: only with Apple!

Let's imagine, for a moment, that Best Buy announces that one of its stores will be closed for a day. How much newsworthy would this be?

A retail store that is otherwise open 24/7 will be closed for 18 hours. This causes a flurry of activity online. By the time this day is done, there will be 40 or more comments in this thread, and many, if not most of them, will be speculation regarding the reason, mostlyl along the lines of "new iPhone is arriving". I am pretty sure at least one will come from a devoted New Yorker who will trek over at 3:00 PM and report live via his iPhone. We'll get data culled from FedEx or UPS, together with bills of lading from the US Customs, calculating the number of cartons/containers/boxes and their total volume, speculating on the exact size of an individual box, etc...

Aaah, the lives of us, Mac fans...

May 29, 08 - 10:40 am Comment from: Jimbo von Winskinheimer

When Steve made the deal with Disney, he also got control of Walt Disney's cryogenically frozen body. I believe they are making room for Uncle Walt in the center of the store. He'll be in an ice "cube", Steve's favorite design.

Bring in those "electric computers"

A wall had to be painted fresh... Still good buzz making here! Ha! Ha!

@ ChrisM

Actually, as with the iPhone and per Apple policy, retail store staff did not officially know until mere hours before the launch (they were told about/trained on it during the shut down before the launch). This is probably just maintenance. Or to give their employees a break, seeing as they work 24/7...

How do they clean and maintain the place if it got customers in 24 hour a day??? That's a question I keep asking myself.

May 29, 08 - 11:07 am Comment from: CheekyGit

@ Mac+

That's because Mac supporters are clean, sophisticated and well-mannered while Windows zombies are stinky walking piles of poo.

No offense, Ballmer.

May 29, 08 - 11:14 am Comment from: JAYGEE

Let the rumors begin!

May 29, 08 - 11:23 am Comment from: Not Bill

@ Predrag
Ant it wonderful?

@ Jimbo von Winskinhelmer
Too funny! I could get hurt laughing that hard.

May 29, 08 - 11:24 am Comment from: Maginary

It's a flying car. Finally, in 2008, we get the flying car. It took a team of 342 engineers 15 years, each isolated from another, with no individual having full scope of the project until completion. We thought it was going to be Ford, or GM, or even Toyota that would be making this announcement, but only Apple, Inc. could accomplish such a feat.

It's an engineering marvel; this flying vehicle with its matte black finish, blue LED headlights, chrome underside, and single logo: the Apple apple, in an ever-so slightly raised, smooth finish, right in front, but small, unlike any other hood ornament. Small semi-spherical bumpers for soft landings. This car has no engine, only tiny nanomolecules in the finish that absorb surrounding energy to create an anti-gravitational field so the car simply floats off into space without sound or exhaust.

The vehicle runs an embedded version of OS X, powered by 124 processors (half of those allocated to the triple redundant safety system) and receives wireless updates from the mother ship, err, Infinite Loop HQ over 802.11X draft 1.0, . It offers multi-touch technology as an interface over an all-glass interior. The display is a gorgeous panoramic that surrounds the user; as there are no windows; we are displaying sensor video on the panorama that follows the "driver's" eyes to always show what's ahead, no matter which direction the driver is facing (since the seats swivel on an armature).

And it is available today, for $19,999.

May 29, 08 - 11:25 am Comment from: MizuInOz

(sarcasm)
I heard from a supposedly good source who heard it from Z.T. that they are renting the place out to the Zune™ marketing group for training and development since there are no more iPhones to sell the customer flow is down to a trickle.

It was the least Steve Jobs could do to help Ballmer feel better after being so rejected by Yahoo! Can you imagine that there are people in this world that can't be bought! Wow! (/sacarsm)

To continue the great hypothecation that is prevalent in this and most things MDN thread... I would say it is Don "comb-it-over" Trump's birthday and he wanted to be able to browse the store without constant harassment from his adoring fans.

After all NYC is his town!

Cheers!

May 29, 08 - 11:29 am Comment from: MizuInOz

@Maginary

And in two weeks when a 248 processor model is released there will be a $200 price reduction and all current owners will be given a gift certificate for free window cleaner with tiny nanobots who actually have a spray bottle and wipe cloths in hand.

May 29, 08 - 11:34 am Comment from: Zach

Probably Inventory... Since they are a 24 hour store they have to close down for it

Does this mean there's a G3 iPhone in my future... could beeeeee!

May 29, 08 - 11:43 am Comment from: Predrag

Since 5th avenue store opened, the only time they were closed (for two hours) was when they introduced the iPhone last year.

Since the store opened, they have refreshed their inventory hundreds of times. They don't close store for this (there is more than one single entrance into the store...).

Even if they were to remodel/repaint anything in the store (as they have done before) they would just fence of that part of the store, put up scaffolding and some screening and continue to do business.

The store has way too much foot traffic to allow it to ever be closed for such long period of time. This must be something major, although it is still a question whether it is product-related at all.

May 29, 08 - 11:48 am Comment from: Ampar

"How do they clean and maintain the place if it got customers in 24 hour a day???"

Alien technology.

May 29, 08 - 11:49 am Comment from: Maginary

@MizuInOz

Technology doesn't stand still. We have to Keep Moving Forward.

May 29, 08 - 11:51 am Comment from: Maginary

Does anyone know how long after the release of Tiger we were receiving the first pieces of information about Leopard? It seemed to come up real quick...

@Maginary: If it's glossy, I'm still not buying it.

May 29, 08 - 12:12 pm Comment from: ElderNorm

---- I was just wondering..... With all that glass.... What do the bathrooms look like???

Are they kept cold so that you can breath heave and steam the glass when you are doing your business??

Just a weird thought. ...... Its all these cold meds.. They are finally getting to me.

May 29, 08 - 12:43 pm Comment from: El Guapo

@Drew_Ill

to give their employees a break, seeing as they work 24/7

Just because the store is 24/7 doesn't mean employees are.

May 29, 08 - 01:02 pm Comment from: Mr. Reeee

El Guapo:

Literacy doesn't mean taking things literally.


It's really amazing to see how Apple keeps the store clean. There are people constantly wiping things down and cleaning, yet managing not to disturb anyone. I've seen them mopping steps before me on the glass staircase as I walk up and down.

@Steve,
The CBS building, which the Apple Store is part of, was just sold for $2.9B. However, that would have nothing to do with the Store closing today. The owners bought it for $1.4B a few years ago, and their biggest coup was getting the Apple Store, because their underground retail mall was lousy, doing lousy business. Now, one wouldn't attribute the CBS building's doubling in price to the Apple Store, but I don't know what else has changed. In fact, the real estate market is much worse and this was a bit of a distress sale as the owners could not refinance.

I have confirmation from a source deep inside that there is going to be a good reason for the closing!!!

May 29, 08 - 02:01 pm Comment from: Predrag

Apparently, they will be filming a TV commercial in the store. That's why it is closed.

Yea, I just got word that a commercial is being filmed.

@ Ampar,

Only in America would immigrant workers with mops, brooms and dust cloths be called alien technology.

May 30, 08 - 02:29 am Comment from: Zach

Wait... a commercial that isn't PC and Mac and not bunch of people dancing around with multi-color backgrounds?