Today and into tomorrow, Apple's online store is going down for a few hours on a rolling country-by-country basis. However, while that sometimes signals that new products are incoming, do not get your hopes up this time around.
Apple takes its online store down for a few hours ahead of Black Friday every year to tease/prepare for its annual gift card offer with the purchase of select products. As of writing, the store already went down and came back online in countries such as Australia and New Zealand, and the gift card offer is now live there. No other surprises.
Every year around this time, we receive many emails from readers alerting us about the store going down, so hopefully this helps to clear up the situation ahead of it going down across Europe, the U.S., and Canada soon.
In case you missed the earlier announcement, Apple is offering a free gift card with the purchase of an eligible product in select countries, from November 29 through December 2. In the U.S., the gift card values range between $25 and $200.
Black Friday is one of the few occasions per year when Apple directly offers deals on its products, but better deals are often available through resellers like Amazon, so make sure to check out our Black Friday deals coverage for the latest discounts on iPads, Macs, AirPods, Apple Watches, accessories, and more.
