Apple’s online store went down with the message “We’ll be right back”, for reasons that are still unclear.
The change could be due to the launch of Apple’s 2026 “Back to School” program, impending price increases, or the launch of new devices.
Apple’s annual back-to-school promotion for the US and Canada is expected to launch any day now, as it still hasn’t launched despite the keynote-driven model Apple has followed in recent years. In three of the last five years, the sale began 8-10 days after the WWDC keynote, and with the 2026 keynote held on June 8, that would have indicated a start the week of June 15, a date that has now passed, which appears to be late.
Apple typically offers free AirPods or Beats headphones, gift cards, or other accessories with eligible Mac and iPad purchases, with deals in North America and Europe typically launching between June and July, and last year’s US version offered a free AirPods 4 with an active noise cancellation deal worth $179 until the end of September.
Apple could raise device prices at any time as signals have gone from speculative to almost confirmed over the past week. Apple CEO Tim Cook said The Wall Street Journal that price increases are “inevitable” due to memory and storage costs, saying Apple is no longer able to absorb the increases and will have to pass on some of the costs to consumers.
BloombergMark Gurman believes that the timing of Cook’s comments indicates that the price increases are “imminent” and linked them to Apple’s back-to-school sale, theorizing that Apple could bundle the two together as a “buffer,” with Gurman noting that the increases are “not a fall thing.”
Apple regularly takes its online store offline to quietly exchange new prices, new product pages, and changes to the back-end configurator. This usually happens when Apple is about to launch new products or run a promotional campaign. Either way, changes to the store are almost certainly imminent.
