iTunes Store suffering outages, delays

It's been a tough morning for the iTunes Store, which seems to be experiencing technical difficulties.

(Credit: Josh Lowensohn/CNET)

The wait to access the iTunes Store on Thursday morning is starting to resemble the wait for Guns N' Roses' new album.

If you had designs on purchasing the long-delayed album Chinese Democracy Thursday from Apple, you were in for a long wait. iTunes customers reported long delays when trying to access the store, which appeared to be up but suffering in some way. The problems appeared to affect all parts of the store, including the App Store, and range from pages timing out, to odd pages such as the one above cropping up during searches, to just plain old slowness.

It's not clear what is causing the problems, and an Apple representative did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment. Let us know if you have problems accessing the store, or if you lost any purchases or application downloads while shopping Thursday morning.

UPDATED 12:35pm - Things seem to be back to normal, pages are loading quickly within the iTunes Store. Apple has yet to comment on what might have happened.

[bdaughtry]

Yep! Something is definitely up. Tried to access the app store and things do load eventually, but it's a real dog at the moment.

[roccot3]

Yes same problem. i'm sure its an unrelated coincidence (?), but more forum posts today (including mine) on the iPhone firmware 2.2 update screwing up the the iPhone's data applications - unable to connect to the internet on 3G, or get mail, just seems to hang.

[bowlie1]

Working fine here in Switzerland. No issues

[AppleSuxLeo]

People actually use that POS ?
Amazon MP3 is cheaper , higher quality , and DRM-free.

[ballmerisanape]

MP3s are not has high quality as the iTunes DRM-free AAC files.

[Perry_Clease]

Grow up Leo

[lixpaulian]

I'm located in Europe, Amazon doesn't allow me to buy music from their store. Any suggestions?

[myles taylor]

You know Leo, people might actually listen to you if you were objective and not so one-track-minded. People just look at you as a ranting, flaming person trying to get attention.

[Ipopngraphics]

So says you Leo.... but we all know you're on the Microsoft payroll, along with all the other Apple haters here... which is why MS never has enough money to put out a decent product...

Isn't it past your nap time?

[ducttape36]

its true, everyone who doesnt like apple is paid by microsoft. just plain facts.

[Vegaman_Dan]

Wouldn't that be a cushy job? Get paid a six figure income to go to web forums and complain about things?

[Perry_Clease]

"So says you Leo.... but we all know you're on the Microsoft payroll"

Naw, he is just a troll. If he was a MicroSoft employed spin doctor then he would make more intelligent posts

[myles taylor]

Yea, even Microsoft wouldn't hire Leo. ;)

[john55440]

Yes, Amazon.com is the best legal source of music, offering customers the choice of DRM-Free MP3s, or the superior sound quality of CDs.

I know, iTunes users prefer compressed lo-fi music, which all that Apple offers.

[Perry_Clease]

BS

[girochin1]

Someone is clueless... All MP3 files are compressed. If it were uncompressed it would be a wav or aiff file and one song would be about 50-70 MB in size.

[yoshiyukino]

Rubbish. iTunes supports AAC, and although both AAC and MP3 are compressed formats, AAC provides better audio for various reason:

- better sample frequencies (8Hz to 96kHz, compared to MP3's 6Hz 48kHz);
- better handling of frequencies over 16kHz
- multi-channel audio up to 48 channels.

and more.

And by the way, I'm not pro-Apple, so i'm not being biased here.

[JoSlaight]

You're absolutely correct. I'd like to add that Amazon's music collection is VAST.

I collect a variety of music and iTunes doesn't carry sh*t in World music (save Celtic), Chicago/ Delta Blues (1930-48), or Independent music / Labels, etcetera.

I enjoy seeing what Amazon's carrying that I don't have.

[Dan7637]

yeah itunes wouldnt let me sync my iPhone after the 2.2 update until i deleted itunes and apple mobile device support then reinstalled itunes- hope this helps anyone having that problem

[Bitakarma]

I have noticed that in the last few weeks there has been at least one incident daily of itunes being down from within the iphone app and music applications. I have not lost a download or application update yet.