Rumors are flying as many speculate the imminent refresh of the Macbook Pro lineup this week. AppleInsider reports that some stores to expect ‘sealed packages’ early this week.
More specifically, the Mac maker this weekend began informing some of its larger European resellers that they could expect delivery of sealed product pallets to their brick-and-mortar stores as early as Monday, which coincides with one of ten federal holidays (President’s Day) in the United States.
As usual, Apple is being super-secretive and has given strict warnings to retailers against basically opening, touching, or breathing on or near these shipments until an official announcement is made. A person familiar with the situation says that Apple is being vocal about yanking reseller licenses from any dealer who gets too nosy ahead of the official announcement.
Also of note is the 3-5 business day delay on shipments for Macbook Pros in the US, with Europeans waiting even longer.
Apple’s major European distributors ran out MacBook Pros near the top of the month, regional resellers have not been able to place new orders for the notebooks for over two weeks, and Apple has not shipped a single unit of its own to the channel during the same period of time.
via Apple Insider, GigaOM