Apple Retail Stores Making Preparations for OS X Lion Launch Next Week?

A pair of reports today are suggesting that Apple may be preparing its retail stores for a launch of OS X Lion next week, with MacBook Air and other hardware updates likely to follow alongside or soon after the new operating system debuts.

9 to 5 Mac reports that Apple has scheduled "overnights" for next Wednesday, July 13th, events where store layouts and promotional materials are tweaked and store management is briefed on new products. While the source offers no information on exactly what will take place during next week's overnights, it seems reasonable to guess that OS X Lion will be a focus of the changes.

AppleInsider follows up with its own report also mentioning overnights scheduled for next week, although the source for that claim did not offer a specific day for the changes. In addition, sources for the report indicate that Apple is requiring that a number of display machines in its retail stores have their RAM upgraded by this Sunday, leading to speculation that Apple is topping them off in advance of the OS X Lion launch.

Separate sources for the report specifically indicate that Apple is preparing OS X Lion for a public launch next week, with revamped MacBook Airs potentially set for an introduction the following week. Retail sources have also indicated that Apple may be formally inviting some customers to download Lion at their local retail stores next week in order to receive assistance learning their way around the new operating system.

Beyond the MacBook Air, Apple appears to have a significant number of other Macs in line for refreshes, including the Mac mini, MacBook and Mac Pro. Other lines such as the MacBook Pro and iMac that have been updated more recently may also be seeing some stock shortages as Apple tries to make the conversion over to systems with Lion preinstalled.