The message greeting people trying to access the Apple Store at the moment:

iTunes is also down, and this is because Apple is holding a press event, where they are expected to announce a movie download service. However, this does not explain the Apple store being down, as that is separate from iTunes. It would seem to indicate a hardware launch, making the strong rumour in recent days of the ‘proper’ video iPod seem all the more likely. Such an iPod would have a touch screen over the whole of the front, with a virtual click wheel appearing when you touch the screen.

Only 10 minutes or so now until the event starts, and Engadget, Gizmodo and CrunchGear are liveblogging the event. It’s a shame I can’t find a webcast anywhere.

Update: This is a bad day for blogging. Engadget, CrunchGear and Gizmodo are all down. You would have thought that they could have predicted there would be an increase in demand for gadget blogs. I’m particularly surprised about Engadget, given the fact that AOL owns them. With AOL’s massive infrastructure, there must be somewhere they could have moved the site to to guarantee access.