There’s no doubt about it – OS X Lion is definitely nearly ready to pounce upon us. Following yesterday’s rumors that Lion could launch Wednesday (alongside new MacBook Airs) at 8:30 AM Eastern, a new report is claiming that Apple Retail Stores and AppleCare centers are already getting final versions of Lion to install on retail display and customer support systems.
The report comes to us from MacRumors, who typically have a good track record when it comes to these sorts of things. According to the report, the Apple Retail Stores and AppleCare Centers are receiving the Lion installation on hard drives.
While this doesn’t help to pinpoint a release date, this does mean that we are one step closer to seeing Lion at retail. The final pieces are coming into place for a possible Lion launch this week – and the Wednesday or Friday release dates that were rumored yesterday are incredibly likely candidates.
From MacRumors:
We’ve now been able to confirm that Apple Retail stores have begun receiving final copies of OS X Lion today. The installations have come on hard drive and are meant for the Apple Retail demo computers on the store floor.
From 9to5Mac:
We’ve received word that all AppleCare reps are now receiving Lion training as well as getting their computers upgraded to Lion. The process began over the weekend and looks to be completing today.
We’ve heard numerous reports that new Store display materials have been arriving over the past week as well.
Apple announced at WWDC 2011 that OS X Lion will be launching in July, but has not publicly committed to a launch date. Apple seeded the Golden Master version of OS X Lion to developers on July 1st, which is typically the final shipping version of the operating system.
Apple is also widely expected to launch new MacBook Airs and new Mac Minis near the same time, and if a recent leak from Apple’s servers is anything to go by, we may also see new Thunderbolt-enabled Apple Cinema Displays at that time as well.
