Store was down for three hours early A.M.

The Apple online store went offline for a little over three hours early Wednesday, normally not an unusual occurrence as the store often goes offline for around the same amount of time nearly every week. This time, however, the store offered a significant change from the usual "We'll be back soon" sticky that has greeted visitors for years. Not only has the graphic been replaced, the message has been subtly altered.

The graphic has been replaced with a wider, whiter box with rounded corners, and the simple dictum "We'll be back," dropping the word "soon" from the original. In fact, the average downtown for store unavailability is just under three hours, with tonight's outage lasting a bit longer than normal at 3:13 minutes. The new note goes on to say "We're busy updating the Apple Store for you and will be back soon."

The store returned with no noticeable changes as is normal after such late night outages. Often, the only differences are changes to the inventory on refurbished items. Occasionally the store has been down in advance of new product announcements.

by MacNN Staff