The Apple Online Store is currently down for customers in the United States with a placeholder saying that the company is “making updates” to its website. However, the reasons behind this are unclear at this point.

Update: The website is back online – and Apple is now offering a $50 gift card to those who purchase a new Apple TV. You can read the original article below.

Apple doesn’t provide details about these updates coming to the Apple Online Store, but one possible reason is the beginning of M2 MacBook Air pre-orders. The company usually takes its site offline before making new products available for sale. Interestingly, the launch of new products often takes place on Fridays.

The new M2 MacBook Air was announced at WWDC 2022 in June, but Apple said it would hit stores sometime in July. A recent report claimed that sales of the new generation MacBook Air are expected to begin on July 15, but pre-orders will probably go live before then. The new 13-inch MacBook Pro, which is also equipped with the M2 chip, arrived in stores last week.

It’s worth noting that, for now, only the US Apple Online Store is down. In other countries, customers are still able to access the Apple Store via the official website and app. You can access the Apple Store here once it’s back.

I say this means MacBook Air preorders on Friday, as expected.

They did this last year, when they took the store down a week ahead of M1 iMac + iPad Pro pre-orders instead of the night before. Lets hope the MBA preorders aren’t as disastrous as those were… https://t.co/6Q5ms3BW4b

— 🅳🆈🅻🅰🅽 (@DylanMcD8) July 1, 2022