Widespread iMessage outage hits Apple users as outage reports spike

Innovation

A widespread outage of Apple’s instant messaging service was reported Friday morning, with thousands of users reporting problems on Downdetector.
Messaging Apps Photo Illustration

More than 10,000 outages have been reported. (Photo Illustration by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

NurPhoto via Getty Images

Key Takeaways
  • Some 13,642 outage reports were made on Downdetector.com as of just after 6 p.m. Eastern time.
  • 75% of the outage reports made on the website reported issues sending messages.
  • Users on X, formerly known as Twitter, rushed to the platform to confirm the issue and voice complaints, boosting iMessage into the No. 1 spot on X’s trending topics.
  • Apple did not immediately respond to Forbes’ request for comment.
Key Background

iMessage outages have traditionally been fixed by Apple not long after they begin. An iMessage and FaceTime outage in 2022 affected thousands of users but was addressed by Apple in about 30 minutes, The Verge reported.

In February, a nationwide cellular network outage impacting AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile customers occurred, forcing AT&T to restore about three-quarters of its network after the outage persisted for about 7 hours.

T-Mobile and Verizon spokespeople told Forbes their networks were operating normally during the outage, but that some customers experienced issues when “calling or texting with customers served by another carrier.”

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