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smacintush · Nov 23, 2007, 03:18 AM

So it's 1:00 AM and the Apple store is down.

What's up with that?

A little middle of the night MP update? On thanksgiving?

"Black Friday" web deals?

Or is it nothing?

Discuss.

cheery7upper · Nov 23, 2007, 03:25 AM

that is exactly what I was thinking

I WANT AN IPOD NANO.

Chuckit · Nov 23, 2007, 03:25 AM

Black Friday. As history has taught us, Apple has not yet got it figured out how you can update a Web site without taking the whole thing down for an hour.

cheery7upper · Nov 23, 2007, 03:28 AM

What do you think will be on sale? Do you know how long their Black Friday sales last - is it a certain number of sales?

smacintush · Nov 23, 2007, 03:40 AM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

Apple has not yet got it figured out how you can update a Web site without taking the whole thing down for an hour.

Oh I think they CAN, they just like to torture us.

smacintush · Nov 23, 2007, 03:41 AM

Originally Posted by cheery7upper

What do you think will be on sale? Do you know how long their Black Friday sales last - is it a certain number of sales?

I'm hoping for Mac Pros @ $99.95.

Hey, it could happen.

cheery7upper · Nov 23, 2007, 03:42 AM

* crosses fingers for you * HECK who wouldn't buy that then?

Pao|o · Nov 23, 2007, 04:26 AM

It's still down and it's past midnight PST. Waht gives Steve-o?

hyteckit · Nov 23, 2007, 05:30 AM

It's back up. Discount less than sales tax. Not very good.

GSixZero · Nov 23, 2007, 05:53 AM

It says "Save big on iPod, iPhone, and Mac gifts."

iPhone is $399... a grand discount of $0.

If they had knocked $20 off I probably would have gotten it.

besson3c · Nov 23, 2007, 02:40 PM

Why does Apple have to take their store offline to update it anyway? Very bizarre...

Their website should not take cues from their OS in this respect

shifuimam · Nov 23, 2007, 05:07 PM

They don't. It's just a silly sales gimmick, but it certainly works to draw attention to them. For Apple, releasing a new product is as important as finding a cure for cancer is to the normal world.

In reality, they do tons of testing before they put the data into production, and putting it into production is really, really simple - input the information, and when you're ready to go live, set the value that tells the server to add that item in the Apple online store.

But there's no fanfare to that now, is there?

besson3c · Nov 23, 2007, 05:17 PM

Originally Posted by shifuimam

They don't. It's just a silly sales gimmick, but it certainly works to draw attention to them. For Apple, releasing a new product is as important as finding a cure for cancer is to the normal world.

In reality, they do tons of testing before they put the data into production, and putting it into production is really, really simple - input the information, and when you're ready to go live, set the value that tells the server to add that item in the Apple online store.

But there's no fanfare to that now, is there?

Exactly... Making changes live to their store in actual reality is analogous to them flicking a switch. When are Apple users going to stop let Apple manipulating them like this with this transparent marketing gimmick?

No disrepect to anyone intended, I know the original poster was sort of posting with tongue in cheek, I'm thinking primarily of all of the dozens of times in the past this has happened, and the constant stream of breaking Apple Store website "it is down!!!11", "it is up!!!11" news story style posts...

They're a damn company people, this is really not that exciting.

Target on the other hand...

Chuckit · Nov 23, 2007, 05:27 PM

You seriously think taking their store down in the middle of the night is some kind of sales gimmick? How on earth do you figure? I mean, aside from getting a thread on MacNN that pisses everybody off, does it do anything except maybe stop a couple of midnight shoppers from making purchases they intended to make anyway?

besson3c · Nov 23, 2007, 05:28 PM

How on Earth do you figure that it takes an hour to update their store?

Chuckit · Nov 23, 2007, 05:31 PM

Because I've seen both really slow workers and really poorly implemented software before.

As the saying goes, "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."

imitchellg5 · Nov 23, 2007, 05:58 PM

I want a mail in rebate on a new iMac for $1499.

besson3c · Nov 23, 2007, 06:19 PM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

Because I've seen both really slow workers and really poorly implemented software before.

As the saying goes, "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."

I have a really hard time believing that Apple, with all of their resources, is happy to repeatedly time and time again put up with the loss of business for an hour for this. It isn't hard to automate pushing out changes to all of their store nodes via an rsync command, or doing some DB inserts to centralized database servers, or whatever. It simply doesn't take an hour, period, and it doesn't require them taking their store offline.

Have you ever heard of Amazon taking their store offline every time a new book is added? Newegg? Dell? Can you think of *any* other company that does this?

Therefore, to me it seems like the only reason why they would do this is to build up anticipation and excitement among the slobbering Mac zealots.

Chuckit · Nov 23, 2007, 06:38 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

I have a really hard time believing that Apple, with all of their resources, is happy to repeatedly time and time again put up with the loss of business for an hour for this.

I don't know why it's so hard for you to believe. It's obvious that they are doing this, for whatever reason.

Originally Posted by besson3c

Therefore, to me it seems like the only reason why they would do this is to build up anticipation and excitement among the slobbering Mac zealots.

So, they intentionally break their Web store just so a handful of people on some Internet forum — who are obviously already paying close attention anyway, so Apple doesn't even gain that — will have to read a short-lived thread about the outage? That makes even less sense than Apple just not wanting to devote the resources to it.

besson3c · Nov 23, 2007, 06:43 PM

What is your theory then, Chuckit? I'm happy to entertain other possibilities, but I have a hard time believing that incompetence is the reason either.

Chuckit · Nov 23, 2007, 06:43 PM

As I said, incompetence. It is strange that it would be the case, but I know incompetence exists, whereas I do not know any increase in sales due to the store being down exists. It doesn't seem all that unlikely to me that somebody put a lot of resources into making a flawed Web store application and they'd lose face now by having to throw it out and get one that doesn't have to go down when you update it — that sort of dumb crap happens all the time.

BlueSky · Nov 23, 2007, 06:59 PM

If someone is in the middle of a purchase and the store gets updated, all sorts 'o shenanigans can happen. Makes sense they'd shut it down so the customer knows exactly what he's getting or not getting.

That's my low-tech theory.

imitchellg5 · Nov 23, 2007, 07:09 PM

An Apple intern messed up.

macdude · Nov 23, 2007, 07:24 PM

It's definately just to make people talk. Anticipation could lead to impulse buying; something I'm sure Apple would welcome with open arms.

I have a seriously hard time believing that the webmasters, employees of Apple, a company with a website that probably gets millions of hits a day, are so incompetent that they must shut down the store each time an update is being made.

Chuckit · Nov 23, 2007, 07:28 PM

But you have an easy time believing that people buy more stuff because the store was down at 1 a.m.? The only people who would "anticipate" stuff because of that are already Apple fanboys and already have plenty of anticipation.

macdude · Nov 23, 2007, 08:03 PM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

But you have an easy time believing that people buy more stuff because the store was down at 1 a.m.? The only people who would "anticipate" stuff because of that are already Apple fanboys and already have plenty of anticipation.

Yes; I have much more of an easy time believing it has to do with buying habits rather than incompetent webmasters.

Chuckit · Nov 23, 2007, 08:16 PM

Seen any studies that show downtime helps Web sites sell more?

macdude · Nov 23, 2007, 08:25 PM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

Seen any studies that show downtime helps Web sites sell more?

Not once. What I do see (in other places, not just here) is that 3/4ths of the time it has been down and I have been around to observe, someone asks why its down or asks if anyone noticed. That's usually followed by something to the effect of "I wonder if they are adding something new..." By taking down the store momentarily, people know something is going on and wait in anticipation and begin going over the site with a fine tooth comb to see if anything has changed. (i.e. recent Santa Rosa platform updates to MacBooks)

MallyMal · Nov 24, 2007, 12:14 AM

I have to agree that Apple takes down the store just for hype.

What's even more funny is that Apple does the same thing with their brick and mortar stores when there is a big announcement.

besson3c · Nov 24, 2007, 12:58 AM

Originally Posted by BlueSky

If someone is in the middle of a purchase and the store gets updated, all sorts 'o shenanigans can happen. Makes sense they'd shut it down so the customer knows exactly what he's getting or not getting.

That's my low-tech theory.

Perhaps, but this would be an insanely bad design if this was the case. No other web based stores that I know of have these problems. An hour's worth of business on a site like Amazon may be more than what any of us make in a year

besson3c · Nov 24, 2007, 12:59 AM

Originally Posted by imitchellg5

An Apple intern messed up.

This happens seemingly every time a change is made to the store. At least, there are posts on this forum often enough to make me think that it happens quite frequently in tandem with product updates.

besson3c · Nov 24, 2007, 01:00 AM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

But you have an easy time believing that people buy more stuff because the store was down at 1 a.m.? The only people who would "anticipate" stuff because of that are already Apple fanboys and already have plenty of anticipation.

It is not 1 AM in Europe or other parts of the world...

Chuckit · 05:22 AM

Originally Posted by macdude

Not once. What I do see (in other places, not just here) is that 3/4ths of the time it has been down and I have been around to observe, someone asks why its down or asks if anyone noticed. That's usually followed by something to the effect of "I wonder if they are adding something new..." By taking down the store momentarily, people know something is going on and wait in anticipation and begin going over the site with a fine tooth comb to see if anything has changed. (i.e. recent Santa Rosa platform updates to MacBooks)

Uh…I think you need to get outside of this little bubble. A short-lived thread with usually like three participants on MacNN is not "hype." And it's not as though anybody who cares about the store being down would fail to notice if they just changed something and put up a banner rather than bringing the site down.

But hey, you know, if you guys want to believe that bringing down the Apple Store results in more sales, you go right ahead and believe that. There's no point in trying to logically debate an idea that isn't based on any actual evidence. It'll be you guys going, "I think Steve Jobs has a voodoo skull in his desk that causes people to buy any product that touches it!" and I'll be like "Uh…I don't think there's such a thing as voodoo skulls," and you guys will be like, "Look at people buying his products! Of course he has a voodoo skull!" And you know, maybe there are voodoo skulls that bless any products that touch them, but I'm not going to believe it without evidence and you're apparently not going to disbelieve it for any reason whatsoever.

macdude · Nov 24, 2007, 09:01 AM

Originally Posted by Chuckit

Uh…I think you need to get outside of this little bubble. A short-lived thread with usually like three participants on MacNN is not "hype." And it's not as though anybody who cares about the store being down would fail to notice if they just changed something and put up a banner rather than bringing the site down.

But hey, you know, if you guys want to believe that bringing down the Apple Store results in more sales, you go right ahead and believe that. There's no point in trying to logically debate an idea that isn't based on any actual evidence. It'll be you guys going, "I think Steve Jobs has a voodoo skull in his desk that causes people to buy any product that touches it!" and I'll be like "Uh…I don't think there's such a thing as voodoo skulls," and you guys will be like, "Look at people buying his products! Of course he has a voodoo skull!" And you know, maybe there are voodoo skulls that bless any products that touch them, but I'm not going to believe it without evidence and you're apparently not going to disbelieve it for any reason whatsoever.

Did you even read the first part of my post? I clearly said that I hadn't just seen it here, but other places as well.

I don't appreciate your "bubble" comment, either. Pretty childish, don't you think, to resort to attacks?

imitchellg5 · Nov 24, 2007, 02:34 PM

A better question would is wouldn't it be pretty childish to resort to attacks over the Apple Store being down at 1 AM in the morning (who's online buying a Mac that early anyway?).

besson3c · Nov 24, 2007, 04:20 PM

Originally Posted by imitchellg5

A better question would is wouldn't it be pretty childish to resort to attacks over the Apple Store being down at 1 AM in the morning (who's online buying a Mac that early anyway?).

Somebody that doesn't live in this hemisphere?

imitchellg5 · Nov 24, 2007, 04:53 PM

The OP said "So it's 1 AM", which leads me to believe that it was 1 AM where he/she is. Or maybe it's a new trend to have an understood location when telling time: "It's 1 AM (in Madrid)".

Chuckit · Nov 24, 2007, 05:03 PM

Originally Posted by macdude

Did you even read the first part of my post? I clearly said that I hadn't just seen it here, but other places as well.

Was it any kind of media outlet that would reach more than a few folks who are already rabid Mac fans who read Mac forums in the middle of the night? Because I've got several Mac news sites in NetNewsWire, and none of them post "ZOMG APPLE STORE IS TEH DOWN!!!" articles that I can recall.

Originally Posted by macdude

I don't appreciate your "bubble" comment, either. Pretty childish, don't you think, to resort to attacks?

No idea what you're talking about. That wasn't an attack. I was just saying, I don't think Apple's going to bring its store down to get some short-lived thread on how the store's down on some forum — that's not "hype." It might seem like it if you're the sort of person who participates in such threads, but it's not. On the other hand, when Apple actually does release something new, the product or sale itself actually gets both long-running threads on forums and articles in news outlets — that is hype.

besson3c · Nov 25, 2007, 03:10 PM

It would be interesting to know just why Apple takes their store offline to add stuff...

badidea · Jan 22, 2008, 09:09 AM

Since there's no new thread this time (what's wrong with you guys???

), this thread had to be brought back to life!

Dakar the Fourth · Jan 22, 2008, 09:12 AM

The way it should be.

residentEvil · Jan 22, 2008, 09:14 AM

it goes down down down down

badidea · Jan 22, 2008, 09:50 AM

Ok, that was fast - already up again and thankfully no new MBPs (I just ordered one and am still waiting for delivery) but a new pink iPod nano!

macmad · Jan 22, 2008, 09:58 AM

yeah, a pink iPod Nano... woot!!!

chris v · Jan 22, 2008, 10:00 AM

Revolutionary! Visionary! Paradigm-smashing!

andi*pandi · Jan 22, 2008, 10:47 AM

Do 2% of sales go to Breast Cancer research. I thought that was mandatory for pink nowadays.

and if my spouse is reading, forget the pink nano. IPOD TOUCH.

analogika · Jan 22, 2008, 10:49 AM

OMGWTF Apple what are they thinking!!!1!!

Who the **** want a stupid pink nano!?

Apple is surely going under now.

The LEAST could have been a pink MacBook Air...

badidea · Jan 22, 2008, 11:33 AM

...or green...with pink stripes...

badidea · Jan 22, 2008, 11:33 AM

...and lens flare! Of course!

Oisín · Jan 22, 2008, 11:40 AM

Paradigm-smashing!

To pink, two iPodren, he nanied?