Apple Store Goes Down Ahead Of WWDC, Silver Background Further Hints At UI Color Scheme Change-Up

What do you know? In proper Apple fashion, the Apple Store is officially down in preparation for the company’s WWDC Keynote announcements, where we expect to hear about refreshed notebooks, a new OS X Mountain Lion, and most importantly, the next-generation version of iOS.

But we noticed something a little different about the company’s “Be Back Soon” page. Once upon a time, the Apple store placeholder was a post-it note, with the text appearing in the same default font used in the Notes application. But more recently, Apple changed the page to something a bit more mature, with standard Apple font on a white place card. But alas, the same linen finish seen on the Siri application has taken over the entirety of the background of the page. Except… it isn’t dark grey, it’s silver.

If you remember correctly, one of the major rumors of this year’s iOS 6 announcement is the possibility that Apple is switching up the color scheme of its UI, from a muted blue to silver.

The WWDC 2012 app released by Apple sports a brand new chrome UI with black text, which has been taken by many as a hint of what to expect. I see this subtle shift in background to be another.

Now, the main question is whether or not the Siri UI will change. The linen-style finish seen here is used inside Siri, which has always been a very dark grey with white text. But a switch over to a very light silver or chrome color would make sense should rumors of a new Silver UI come to fruition. IF that’s the case, expect to see black text similar to the text shown in the WWDC app.

We’ll have to wait just a bit longer to find out if this means anything, but in the mean time, Apple’s pull-down of the online store is proof that everything’s running right on schedule.

See you guys, at 1pm ET/10am PT.