Apple's iCloud Mail & Notes services hit by sudden outage [u]

Issues began around 8 a.m. Eastern time and are still ongoing, Apple's system status tracker indicates. The company claims that only 0.86 percent of iCloud users are affected.

Apple hasn't said whether the problem is global or localized, or when it might be resolved. Other online services could also potentially be affected, since Apple's tracker will sometimes miss the full extent of difficulties, or even ignore them completely.

People should still be able to use local versions of the Notes app such as the one in iOS 9, but affected users may not be able to get them to sync, or create new ones through iCloud.com.

iCloud has been hit by semi-regular outages since it first launched in 2011. Apple is believed to be working on overhauling and internalizing the network's architecture, but teams at the company are thought to be mired in conflict.

Updated: Apple states that the problem was resolved shortly after noon Eastern time.