New Apple Online Store coming soon banner is likely meaningless to most of us

There’s been talk this morning that Apple is “preparing [an] overhaul of its online store.” This is based off a banner that says a “new Apple Store is launching very soon.” The fact is that this new online store has nothing to do with the Apple Online Store that each of us run to whenever a new product is announced. This online store is more of an internal environment for educational institutions and Apple authorized resellers to buy more product for their students and store customers, respectively.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKpHelX41t8]

Apple authorized resellers began receiving notifications about an updated online store this past week (see above), but, again, that new store is simply an updated version of the reseller store that end-users should never see. On the notification email is an iMac displaying the current Apple Online Store for resellers.

That seemingly “new” Apple Online Store user interface is nearly two years old. Directly above is an Apple-created video overview of the online store provided to resellers in 2010. It appears that this online store update may span to Apple’s online store specifically for educational institutions (and perhaps for business customers), but these “New Online Store Coming Soon” banners are not referring to Apple’s standard online store. On the other hand, we know that Apple is at work on a new Apple Online Store (which could launch anytime), but these banners are not indicative of that re-design.