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Apple's online store services down for some users [u]

Users of Apple's online store services, which include iTunes, the iOS and Mac App Stores, the iBooks Store and Volume Purchase Program assets, saw unexpected outages on Monday due to an as-yet-unknown problem.

The downtime began to affect an unknown number of customers using Apple's various store services at around 4:20 p.m. Eastern, according to the company's system status Support Page. Some users can access content previews, but are unable to make purchases through the online storefronts, suggesting the problem lies with Apple's payments processing backend.

Apple last saw a major iTunes and App Store outage in March when online purchasing services were down for hours. In that case, the problem affected all users and extended to Apple ID Web logins. Most recently, Photos, Mail Drop, iCloud Drive, iCloud Backup, Documents in the Cloud and iMessage experienced issues for about five hours in July.

Apple's network services have for years suffered from occasional outages and unscheduled downtime, though issues are usually tended to within hours.

Update: Apple fixed the issue at 5:30 p.m. Eastern.