Apple Thoughts - News & Reviews on all things Apple

"Apple has a little known "Reserve and Pick Up" website where you can check if a certain Apple product is in stock at a certain Apple Store. Apple has just added the Apple TV to this web portal and it's now the perfect way to check if your local store has any of them in stock."

I like this feature, so if you have been wondering if your local Apple Retail Store has that Apple TV in stock, now you can check online. But before I actually made the trip I would give them a call first, just in case. Here is the link if you are so inclined.

"You decided to skip the lines on June 19th and now you just have to purchase an iPhone 3GS for yourself. If you're like some of our readers, you've found out the hard way that availability of the latest iteration of iPhone is limited. Wouldn't it be nice to know which Apple Stores actually have the devices in stock before you hop in the Family Truckster, drive through traffic, and only then find out that they're out of iPhones?"

This worked out well during the 3G launch for me, used it several times to check availability when I was waiting for the Portland stores to replenish. You can access this at Apple, so if you haven't purchased a 3GS yet, check it out to see if your neighborhood stores are depleted or not before you burn all that carbon (only in the US though).