[NewsPoster]

As is normal this time of year, Apple has sent out a notification to registered developers reminding them that iTunes Connect, the developer portal for apps on the App Store that lets them update, manage, add and view statistics on their apps, will be closed for the holidays. This year, the closure is one day shorter than it the scheduled shutdown last year, and will run from December 21 through 27. During that time, developers will be unable to submit new apps, update Newsstand publications, debut apps or submit new In-App Purchases.

The company says that sales and trend reports will still be available to developers, but that they may not be fully up-to-date during the period. Apple cautions trying to change prices on apps during that week (by submitting the price change ahead of the closure but scheduling it for the period in question) will cause the app to become entirely unavailable. Apps scheduled in advance to debut during the closure week will instead appear sometime after the iTunes Connect portal reopens on December 27.

Last year (and the year before), the portal was scheduled to remain closed until December 28, but reopened a day early. Developers who have questions about the closure or scheduling should use the "Contact Us" module on iTunes Connect.

[Inkling]

Has Apple already closed down part of the iTunes store? I've tried dozens of times Friday evening and Saturday morning to subscribe to a podcast (actually, I tried two just to be sure) to no avail. Sometimes the "Accessing iTunes store" message stays up just a split second, sometimes it stays up several seconds, but it never gives me that subscription. And yes, I've tried reloading iTunes several times.

Other parts seem a bit slower, but podcast subscriptions aren't working at all.

[Charles Martin]

Inkling: the article refers to closing iTunes Connect, the developer portal, over Christmas -- not the iTunes Store. Podcast subscriptions are working normally for me, but that's not to say there wasn't an issue when you tried it.