Apple Store Outage Very Suspicious; is a Hacker to Blame?

Reports indicate that something new is on the way, but is it all just a cover to hide what's really going on?

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) is notorious for taking down its own online store in preparation for the launch of a new product. This process is often a fast one; the last time store.apple.com went down, it was back up within one hour.

Traditionally, Apple replaces the store page with a “we'll be back soon” message to assure customers that everything is running smoothly (and to encourage them to return shortly, of course). There have been no such messages today. While I've heard reports that Apple has said it will be “back soon,” I have yet to see any proof of that myself.

I have repeatedly loaded store.apple.com in three separate browsers (Chrome, Opera and Firefox). Not once have I received the “we'll be back soon” post-it. But I have seen the words, “Oops! Google Chrome could not connect to store.apple.com,” quite a few times.

Earlier today, CNET picked up on a story from 9To5Mac, causing many to believe that this has something to do with the store's temporary death. If that were the case, Apple would have surely let the public know.

But as of 1:08 p.m. EDT, the Apple Store is still down.

While this might not seem too crazy, there were reports that the store re-opened an hour ago, then went back down. Contrary to what people were hoping, that doesn't sound like the beginning of a new product launch.

If Apple was hit by a hacker, why not release a statement to this fact? Personally, I don't think that is something Apple would want to the public to know about. And if the company wanted to hide the truth, it could do so by forcing the launch of something new when the site goes live.

“Oh, but Apple would never do that!” Apple fans will surely cry. “Apple is honest and pure! Apple never lies! Apple never rushes products!”

Maybe, maybe not. Either way, the company's silence has been very suspicious.

Follow me @LouisBedigian