iTunes Connect to Go Down for Maintenance as App Store Problems Persist

Wednesday July 13, 2011 12:01 am PDT by Arnold Kim

Early last evening, the Mac App Store and iTunes App Store began having intermittent connectivity problems that we originally reported on our Mac Blog. The issues were widely reported by our readers in many geographic areas though the problems came and went for individuals. Reports of problems, however, have persisted all night, representing one of the longest durations of connection issues with the App Store ever.

Late this evening, Apple has started emailing developers to let them know that their developer portal iTunes Connect will be undergoing maintenance throughout the day on Wednesday (emphasis ours):

iTunes Connect will be undergoing scheduled maintenance on Wednesday, July 13 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. PDT.

During this time, iTunes Connect will still be available. However, pricing changes made between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. PDT will cause the app to become unavailable for purchase until maintenance is complete, at which point the app will become available at the new price. To avoid interruptions to the availability of your apps, do not make price changes during this time.

Lastly, customers may not be able to purchase apps in the Mexico, U.K., Australia, Switzerland, Japan or Norway storefronts during the scheduled maintenance.

Regards,
The App Store team

It's not entirely clear if the maintenance is related to the downtime, but it seems likely given the short notice. The window of time covers the entire day and Apple says it could actually affect customer purchasing in many geographic areas.

While Apple is expected to also release OS X Lion to the App Store in July, the duration and scope of this maintenance seem beyond what might be considered normal downtime.

Top Rated Comments

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wordoflife

24 months ago

It's probably related to the backlight keyboard on the next Macbook airs

Rating: 25 Positives

jamied95

24 months ago

I know that none of you will believe me. I messaged @Lulsec on twitter (not expecting a response). Asking if they where DDOS ing Apple. They came back and said "depends who's asking"
So I replied"just a geek"
And they relied "we confirm"

If anyone at Mac Rumours wants to PM an email adress, I can send you the screenshot from my twitter.

My twitter account is @karlnicholson

It's because you're talking to some nobody. You got a reply from lulsec, not lulzsec.

Rating: 7 Positives

arn

24 months ago

Could be a maintenance / preparation gone wrong...?

Perhaps.

I really hope Lulzsec hasn't decided to attack Apple. It probably has the most credit card numbers stored, next to the credit card companies themselves. And going after emails and passwords has been their modus operandi in the past.

No one has claimed it, so seems unlikely. I'd expect if someone was responsible for it, they would be bragging about it.

arn

Rating: 7 Positives

Portal83

24 months ago

Lastly, customers may not be able to purchase apps in the Mexico, U.K., Australia, Switzerland, Japan or Norway storefronts during the scheduled maintenance.

Oh no! I won't be able to purchase apps from "the Mexico"!

Rating: 6 Positives

iDisk

24 months ago

Could be a maintenance / preparation gone wrong...?

I doubt that, Apple has a history of "taking down" sites for basic or sometime maintenance stuff (ie; The Apple Online Store)

I think it's because of Lion, and making sure, it all works smoothly. They want to avoid a MobileMe launch repeat.

...

Can you imagine Steve going around asking people "Were you apart of the Lion MacApp Store launch" then holding a meeting going:

Steve: "Can somebody tell me what the Lion Launch via MacApp Store is suppose to do?"

gets satisfied answer

Steve: "So why the f@#$ doesn't it do that!?"

Rating: 6 Positives