UPDATE: Apple’s online store came back online shortly before 1 p.m. Eastern with new iMacs, a new MacBook, a new Mac mini and a new “Magic” Mouse (the Mighty Mouse having run into trademark problems). The products are displayed on the reconfigured website and described in a series of press releases:

• The new iMacs
• The new MacBook
• The new Magic Mouse

Apple’s website describes a new “mightier” mini, but no press release on that yet.

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Apple’s (AAPL) online store went off line Tuesday morning, adding fuel to rumors that it held its quarterly earnings call a day early to clear the decks for the release of some new hardware.

The Apple blogs have been predicting this for weeks, none more succinctly than Daring Fireball’s John Gruber, who responded to a provocation from Dan “Fake Steve Jobs” Lyons with this cryptic note:

Dan Lyons Apparently Thinks Yours Truly Hasn’t Heard About the Redesigned Plastic MacBooks, Redesigned (‘Impressive’) iMacs, Updated Minis (Including One That Ships With Mac OS X Server), the Multi-Touch Magic Mouse, and, as the Wildcard I’m-Not-Sure-I-Re

Unseemly for the Fake Steve character to be so wrong (or, frankly, even to care) about what I know.

By Thursday, I’m sure everybody will be talking about Windows 7 again.

[Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter @philiped]