Roger Fingas
The iTunes Store, the iOS and Mac App Stores, and even the Apple TV were among services affected by a midday outage on Thursday, leaving some people unable to reach them or make purchases. [Updated]
The incident began at around 10 a.m. Eastern time, and is still ongoing, according to Apple's System Status page. The problem is also affecting a number of subservices, including the iBooks Store, iTunes Match, iTunes in the Cloud, and the Volume Purchase Program.
As is usual for an ongoing network problem, the company hasn't said what percentage of users are being affected and when normal operations might resume.
Such a disruption is a serious issue for Apple, since it interferes not just with its own revenues but those of developers. It can also prevent people and organizations from fetching important apps and updates.
Apple's online services are occasionally impacted by outages of varying severity. In November, for instance, the company was hit with downtime that impacted not just its online stores, but also Apple Maps. That might have prevented some drivers from using their iPhone to navigate, since they might also have been unable to download an alternative like Waze or Google Maps.
Update: As of noon Eastern time, all services are reportedly back online.
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23 Comments
AppleInsider
said:
maps.google.com and waze.com/livemap work just fine in your favorite browser on iOS. You don't 'need' the app.
Time to clean house, Tim. This is getting ridiculous.
If the backend is being rebuilt as has been rumored, then get out there and make that message. If it's incompetence, then get out there with that message.
Wonder how many millions this costs them every time?
For once, I saw this as my iTunes Match stopped dead while playing. I would imagine Apple are a prime target for malicious DOS attacks , if only by Samsung ;)
I was affected, I was trying to update the Apps in iTunes and didn't worked, now seems to be working as the update in the report said. In my case nothing to lose, was a long overdue update of the apps, in case I buy an iDevice in the future to sync with this mac.