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.
Apple plans to cut production of the iPhone Air amid underwhelming sales performance, Japan's Mizuho Securities believes (via The Elec).
The Japanese investment banking and securities firm claims that the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are seeing higher sales than their predecessors during the same period last year, while the standard iPhone 17 is a major success, performing...
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iOS 26 was released last month, but the software train never stops, and iOS 26.1 beta testing is already underway. So far, iOS 26.1 makes both Apple Intelligence and Live Translation on compatible AirPods available in additional languages, and it includes some other minor changes across the Apple Music, Calendar, Photos, Clock, and Safari apps.
More features and changes will follow in future ...
Thursday October 16, 2025 9:13 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro with its next-generation M5 chip, but previous rumors have indicated that the company still plans to announce at least a few additional products before the end of the year.
The following Apple products have at one point been rumored to be updated in 2025, although it is unclear if the timeframe for any of them has...
Wednesday October 15, 2025 3:54 pm PDT by Juli Clover
We didn't get a second fall event this year, but Apple did unveil updated products with a series of press releases that went out today. The M5 chip made an appearance in new MacBook Pro, Vision Pro, and iPad Pro models.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
We've rounded up our coverage and highlighted the main feature changes for each device below.
MacBook Pro
M5...
Friday October 17, 2025 7:35 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple's software engineers continue to internally test iOS 26.0.2, according to MacRumors logs, which have been a reliable indicator of upcoming iOS versions.
iOS 26.0.2 will be a minor update that addresses bugs and/or security vulnerabilities, but we do not know any specific details yet.
The update will likely be released by the end of next week.
Last month, Apple released iOS 26.0.1,...
Thursday October 16, 2025 8:31 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with an M5 chip, and there are two key storage-related upgrades beyond that chip bump.
First, Apple says the new 14-inch MacBook Pro offers up to 2× faster SSD performance than the equivalent previous-generation model, so read and write speeds should get a significant boost. Apple says it is using "the latest storage technology," ...
Apple today announced the next-generation iPad Pro, featuring the custom-designed M5, C1X, and N1 chips.
The M5 chip has up to a 10-core CPU, with four performance cores and six efficiency cores. It features a next-generation GPU with Neural Accelerator in each core, allowing the new iPad Pro to deliver up to 3.5x the AI performance than the previous model, and a third-generation ray-tracing ...
Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:07 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple today updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with its new M5 chip, which is also available in updated iPad Pro and Vision Pro models.
In addition, the base 14-inch MacBook Pro can now be configured with up to 4TB of storage on Apple's online store, whereas the previous model maxed out at 2TB. However, the maximum amount of unified RAM available for this model remains 32GB.
Like...
Thursday October 16, 2025 3:57 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Apple plans to launch MacBook Air models equipped with the new M5 chip in spring 2026, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Apple is also working on M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pro models that will come early in the year.
Neither the MacBook Pro models nor the MacBook Air models are expected to get design changes, with Apple focusing on simple chip upgrades. In the case of the MacBook Pro, a m...
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.
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.
Considering this article from InformationWeek earlier this week there's a lot at stake for Apple:
Beneath the all-digital release, there's a bigger goal, sources told BYTE. The all-digital launch of the 6GB Lion downoad to a giant, broad base of users is really designed to see how well Apple will deliver its even more ambitious iCloud service to a new generation of multi-touch, non-optical drive Macs and notebooks. Apple plans to debut them in August and ship September, sources say.
Digital delivery -- and the Maiden facility is key to this -- must work well for Apple to declare a success for Lion and continue along with its more ambitious plans later.
The Maiden, NC facility won't operate alone, sources say. For OS X Lion, Maiden will operate in concert with Apple's second-largest facility, the 110,000 sq. foot center in Newark, CA, its Cupertino, CA facility and likely those of third-party partners such as Akamai, sources say.
Apple needs to find out in a large scale test, and Lion is that test, if iCloud services really will work the way people will expect on current devices and the new Macs and notebooks coming in September, sources tell BYTE.
Thus, it would be very plausible to perform extensive maintenance. Apple would not necessarily have to move content over to other farms, but they would want to spread the load as much as possible, perhaps per region.
