Apple iTunes Store outage leaves 20% of users in the dark

Apple's iTunes Store went down Tuesday morning for nearly three and a half hours, preventing some users from making purchases.The outage -- which started at 6:00 a.m. PT and lasted until 9:26 a.m. PT -- affected 20 percent of users, according to Apple's system status page. It is unclear what caused the outage, though such service disruptions plaguing Apple's systems have been on the rise of late. Screenshot by Nick Statt/CNETAn iTunes Store outage in June affected an equal number of users for an hour and a half on the heels of another outage earlier that week that affected displayed images in the US, UK, and Germany. Related stories:Dialed in 110: Lessons for Android (podcast)The 404 Podcast 498: Where Jeff battles the TriadBuzz Out Loud Podcast 1145: China to Google: Suck itThen, earlier this month, the store went down again and was reportedly followed by a FaceTime disruption shortly thereafter. Of course, these down times are not in the same vein as the security breach in July that kept Apple's Developer site in shambles for weeks. An Apple