Apple says iTunes, App Stores down for all users

Access to some Apple Inc services, including the App Store, iTunes Store, Mac App Store and iBooks Store, remained off line after more than seven hours on Wednesday.

Many users took to Twitter, using hashtags such as #itunesdown and #appstoresdown, to express their frustration.

"Customers may be unable to make purchases from the App Store, iTunes Store, iBooks Store, or Mac App Store," the company said on its website.

A similar outage occurred in early September, according to appleinsider.com.

Apple said on Wednesday that its iCloud Mail and iCloud Account & Sign In were also affected until about 9 a.m. ET (1300 GMT).

The other services went off line at about 5 a.m. ET, a timeline on Apple's website showed. They were still unavailable as of 12:56 p.m. ET.

The Apple Store was shut briefly on Monday, ahead of the company's highly anticipated unveiling of the Apple Watch.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the cause of the outage.

"Service outages happen from time to time and we view this as a very minor event," FBR Capital Markets analyst Daniel Ives told Reuters.

Apple shares were down less than 1 percent at $123.60 in early afternoon trading.

(Reporting By in Bengaluru)