Strange things were afoot on the App Store and iTunes App Store last night. It finally seems like we have some answers about what was going on. Apple emailed developers letting them know that iTunes Connect will be undergoing maintenance all day today (Wed., July 13). While there was no official word that the downtime and maintenance were directly related, it is a little suspect that the email went out after people started having problems with the App Store.
The email from Apple reads:
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
As stated above, just in case you skipped it, price changes to apps will result in applications becoming unavailable during the iTunes Connect downtime. So, we recommend holding off on any sales or changes to app prices until tomorrow.
Many are expecting Apple to ship Lion in the very near future, so the changes could have something to do with the OS being delivered through the App Store to the masses. Either way, we probably won’t ever know at this point.
Source: MacRumors
