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Apple Store team busy installing extra noise, additional funk

As has been widely emailed by our crack readers, the Apple Store is down as of midnight. We'd chalk this up to actual maintenance, but since it is officially Tuesday on the US East Coast, we'll give it the new-product benefit of the doubt. Some items, including Airport Express units and the Mac Mini, have been reported in limited availability mode for a while, so it's possible that we'll see some revisions come daylight. We also have been told that the iPod touch January Update is mysteriously unavailable for purchase at the moment (thanks Will!) so perhaps that's in play as well. Of course, it could just be, you know, maintenance.

The question must be considered: are the Apple Store outages really technically necessary to update the store content, or are they a form of grass-roots marketing that primes the buying audience for something new? After all, Amazon, Dell and Newegg add products constantly and never seem to stall into these extended cones of silence. Is the Tuesday lacuna just a passive-aggressive way to get our attention, like a child throwing a sulk?

Recently, former Apple staffer Chuq von Rospach suggested via a Twitter response to Shawn King that the architecture of the Apple Store really, truly does require extended downtime to make changes to the product lineup. If that's the case, then this is an astonishingly powerful argument for the existence of the RDF -- only a marketing force capable of warping the fabric of space could turn an engineering flaw into self-generating hype with every minor tweak of the product line.

Update 7 am ET:
Looks like it was only maintenance after all.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

As has been widely emailed by our crack readers, the Apple Store is down as of midnight. We'd chalk this up to actual maintenance, but...
 

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robogobo

why do I repeat myself every Tuesday? ACD!!!!

March 11 2008 at 8:53 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
AlphaTeam

Once again the "We'll be back soon" sticky has stopped time.

March 11 2008 at 11:26 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Ahren

Good. You totally freaked me out, I just bought a Mac Mini yesterday. FYI, it shipped before the day was out, so I'm not sure how liter their supply really is.

March 11 2008 at 9:23 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Timothy Andrew

Absolutely nothing. No iPhone in Canada either.

March 11 2008 at 6:50 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Giorgos

4 hours for a purple nano...

March 11 2008 at 6:48 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Giorgos's comment
Nik

No purple nano...

March 11 2008 at 6:56 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
database

OMG! "Http/1.1 Service Unavailable "

March 11 2008 at 6:43 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to database's comment
Nik

Yeah i got that too but then it went away lol

March 11 2008 at 6:46 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
database

It's back people! Nothing to see here, move along.

March 11 2008 at 6:42 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Nik

the stores up....all looks the same

March 11 2008 at 6:39 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Braindead

Back up nothing new as far as i can see

March 11 2008 at 6:37 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Eckofish

Airport Extreme updates would rock the house for me.

Even thought the current model with Wireless G is pretty kick ass I think they need to beef it up a little and kick it into N. N being Nitro.

March 11 2008 at 6:26 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Eckofish's comment
Eckofish

By saying airport extreme I clearly meant airport EXPRESS.
If only I could get rid of this shame. :|

March 11 2008 at 6:29 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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