Apple services suffer brief outage before being restored
A slew of Apple’s services experienced widespread outage that affected several of its core online services, for at least an hour. The services have since returned back to normal.
The disruption to Apple’s services unfolded on Wednesday evening, with users reporting difficulties accessing the App Store and other associated platforms. It began around 6:30 PM Eastern Time (ET) and impacted a significant portion of Apple’s ecosystem. Users attempting to access the App Store were met with frustrating error messages like “Cannot Connect” and “Something went wrong.” This effectively locked them out of the ability to get new apps or update existing ones. The issues persisted for a substantial period, impacting users on various Apple devices, including iOS, macOS, and tvOS.
“Users are experiencing a problem with this service. We are investigating and will update the status as more information becomes available,” Apple’s system status page said. “There’s a problem loading this content. If this continues, check your internet connection,” an error message on Apple TV error message read.
The disruption wasn’t limited to the App Store. Apple’s entertainment offerings, Apple Music (Radio and Subscriptions), and Apple TV+, were also caught in the crossfire. Music lovers were unable to stream their favorite tunes, while TV enthusiasts faced difficulties accessing their desired shows and movies. Other services, including Apple Podcasts, Audiobooks, iCloud Storage Upgrades, Apple Books, and even the relatively new Apple Fitness+, were similarly affected, with users unable to sign in or complete transactions. However, as reports continued to pour in and user frustration escalated, Apple eventually updated its System Status page to confirm the widespread nature of the outage.
According to Downdetector – the outage tracker – 88% of Apple App Store’s users faced issues while connecting with the company’s servers. 7% of users had issues with the website, while 5% of users had trouble logging in. 94% of users of Apple Music had trouble streaming via the service, while 3% of users ran into issues with the website. 2% of users had troubles with logging in.
After several hours of disruption, Apple announced that it had resolved the outages affecting its services. The company attributed the issues to disruptions that occurred between 6:13 p.m. and 7:35 p.m. Eastern Time. While Apple did not provide specific details regarding the cause of the outage, it assured users that services were back online and operational. “Today, 3:43 AM – 5:05 AM…Some users were affected…Users experienced a problem with this service,” read Apple’s update on its status page regarding its App Store.
Apple’s outage wasn’t an isolated incident. Earlier on Wednesday, users of multiple Meta platforms (including Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram) ran into their own set of technical difficulties. Reports began surfacing around 11.45 PM IST, with users encountering issues like being unable to send messages on WhatsApp, access their Facebook newsfeeds, or view photos and videos on Instagram. Similar to the Apple outage, these issues stemmed from technical problems within the Meta infrastructure. “We know some people are experiencing issues right now, we’re working on getting things back to 100% for everyone as quickly as possible,” WhatsApp announced in a post on X.
