Outage hits Apple's iTunes, App Store

Apple's online stores for product and app purchases went down Wednesday for at least five hours, affecting its customers worldwide. The tech giant's status page showed the App Store, iTunes, iBooks store and Mac App store went down from 0900 GMT.

Workers-prepare-for-the-opening-of-an-Apple-store-in-Hangzhou-Zhejiang-province-Photo-Reuters

Apple's online stores for product and app purchases went down Wednesday for at least five hours, affecting its customers worldwide. The tech giant's status page showed the App Store, iTunes, iBooks store and Mac App store went down from 0900 GMT.

Similar outages were seen in Apple online services in Britain and France. The Next Web, the international technology news site, said it had reports of outages affecting more than 40 countries.

Apple did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.

The news comes two days after Apple announced details of its smartwatch, which will be available in several markets on April 24, along with a new Macbook computer.