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Apple's online store is down in anticipation of its "Hi, Speed" event later on Tuesday, suggesting at least some products may be available to pre-order or order immediately after the event.

apple-store-down.jpg

The placeholder for the U.S. online store says "We're making updates to the Apple store. Check back soon."

Apple's "Hi, Speed" event will be a virtual media event, where the company is expected to take the wraps off its flagship iPhone 12 lineup, a smaller, more affordable HomePod, and potentially other products.

We've heard conflicting rumors about when Apple's new iPhone models will be available to order, but Apple is expected to stagger the launches this year, and we're not expecting iPhone pre-orders to open immediately.

Chinese leaker Kang, who has provided accurate information in the past, claims pre-orders for the 6.1-inch ‌iPhone 12‌ and ‌iPhone 12‌ Pro models could begin this coming Friday, October 16, with the first ‌iPhone 12‌ shipments and an official launch on Friday, October 23.

Preorders for the "‌iPhone 12‌ mini" meanwhile are said to commence on Friday, November 6, with the device launching on Friday, November 13 – the same day that pre-orders for the ‌iPhone 12‌ Pro Max will allegedly commence. Apple's largest ever handset would then launch one week later on Friday, November 20.

With other rumored products also said to be in the wings, including a "HomePod mini," Apple could well be setting up its store to accept pre-orders. On the other hand, it may simply be adding promotional pages in advance of later product pre-order dates.

Either way, we'll know for sure soon. Apple's media event kicks off at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time, and you can tune in on Apple's event page, on Apple's YouTube channel, or through the TV app on Apple's various platforms. Stay up to date on all the latest news and developments right here on MacRumors!

🔥 Visit our Live Coverage of the Apple Event


Article Link: Apple Online Store Goes Down Ahead of iPhone 12 Apple Event
 
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Here we go again. The idiotic 'store goes down for 6 hours' crap. Why anyone thinks this makes sense in today's world is beyond me.

Amazon, ESPN, news sites ... ALL update a TON more content than Apple all day long and never have to go 'down' to do so.

And for those who think it makes things 'more exciting' ... all I can say is grow up.

And by the way, Apple gets rid of magsafe and the external battery indicator led (two things I thought were ingenious and useful) in the name of 'progress' ... yet they keep on with this stone-age theater of shutting down the site to update a few products.
 
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What a waste of time. Apple these days have gone more and more stupid imo. What’s the point of wasting 6 hours for products you’re not even going to release today? Yeah it’ll make sense if they do the iPad Air but knowing these backward idiots, they’ll do pre orders for Friday.
 
I keep thinking and expecting to be disappointed by the iPhone 12. However after Apple have shown them off, probably spoke about some things we don’t know about (there’s always some small things that the leakers dont know) i might soon change my mind 😂. The Apple hype is real people 😂
 
So, that's more than 6 hours of daytime (in Europe) selling they throw down the drain, not just for one product, but for all their products and accessories.
Here we go again. The idiotic 'store goes down for 6 hours' crap. Why anyone thinks this makes sense in today's world is beyond me.

Amazon, ESPN, news sites ... ALL update a TON more content than Apple all day long and never have to go 'down' to do so.

And for those who think it makes things 'more exciting' ... all I can say is grow up.

And by the way, Apple gets rid of magsafe and the external battery indicator led (two things I thought were ingenious and useful) in the name of 'progress' ... yet they keep on with this stone-age theater of shutting down the site to update a few products.

It's for show. It's like having a big curtain on stage before the show. They're a $2 trillion company. I'm sure they've crunched the numbers to determine that the hype is worth it.

After all, do they really lose any sales? If you're looking to buy a Mac or an iPad right now, are you going to completely change your mind and abandon your purchasing plans just because the site is down for one morning, or are you just going to come back later? Plus, when you come back, now you see all the new stuff that's featured.

All I'm saying is that it's safe to assume that Apple knows a bit more about marketing hype and sales than you or I.
 
Here we go again. The idiotic 'store goes down for 6 hours' crap. Why anyone thinks this makes sense in today's world is beyond me.

Amazon, ESPN, news sites ... ALL update a TON more content than Apple all day long and never have to go 'down' to do so.

And for those who think it makes things 'more exciting' ... all I can say is grow up.

And by the way, Apple gets rid of magsafe and the external battery indicator led (two things I thought were ingenious and useful) in the name of 'progress' ... yet they keep on with this stone-age theater of shutting down the site to update a few products.

Were you planning to go buy something from the store right now?
 
It's for show. It's like having a big curtain on stage before the show. They're a $2 trillion company. I'm sure they've crunched the numbers to determine that the hype is worth it.

After all, do they really lose any sales? If you're looking to buy a Mac or an iPad right now, are you going to completely change your mind and abandon your purchasing plans just because the site is down for one morning, or are you just going to come back later? Plus, when you come back, now you see all the new stuff that's featured.

All I'm saying is that it's safe to assume that Apple knows a bit more about marketing hype and sales than you or I.

I guess I would say I done blame Apple for doing it if it works. My issue then is with all the idiots on whom it works. :rolleyes:
 
I seem to remember someone posted on here recently, who had experience/knowledge of the web platform that Apple uses... and they said that it WAS NEEDED for the Apple store to go down in order to make these large updates to pages/purchasing. Some legacy system.

I don’t know if true or not, and if so, surely time for a web platform upgrade?

Does it also generate hype? Maybe a bit.

Does it stop someone unaware of upcoming release from buying an iPhone 11 literally hours before it is replaced..? Defninitely! ;-)
 
I work for a big company and we do the same thing when it's black friday!

We don't know how the Apple platforms are build, but when you are a big company you probably have a lot of platforms integrated that sync one with another and after updating all, you need to make sure everything works!

Also when you are expecting a large number of traffic you make some performance improvements and caching for the website! That needs to be done after everything was tested and it's ready to go live and usually takes some time.

And maybe they don't take 6 hours to do ... but if there is a problem, better have time to fix it than not be ready cause you closed the store only 2 hours before event :)


Some of you just think of the website and that's it! But think about their stores, shipping platforms, deposits, and so on where they will push new product ids, prices, everything!

It getting harder and harder to stop leaks before events ... and probably that's why they do it this way!
 
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So, that's more than 6 hours of daytime (in Europe) selling they throw down the drain, not just for one product, but for all their products and accessories.
That's six hours not selling to people who will be badly annoyed if what they bought is replaced with something new and better. And 99% of these people will come back in six hours time, and if they wanted to order something, they will still order something.
 
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