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Apparent Widespread iMessage Outage Hits Users As Outage Reports Spike

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6 months ago

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Apparent Widespread iMessage Outage Hits Users As Outage Reports Spike

Topline

A widespread outage of Apple’s instant messaging service was reported Thursday afternoon, with thousands of users reporting problems on Downdetector, though Apple reported shortly after 7 p.m. that the issue had been “resolved.”

Key Facts

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.

Apple’s system status page said shortly after 7 p.m. Eastern time the issue was “resolved,” noting some users were affected between 5:49 p.m. and 6:35 p.m. Eastern time.

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.

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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.”

Further Reading

AT&T Says It Restored Network After Nationwide Cell Service Outages (Forbes)

iMessage is back up and running (The Verge)

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