iMessage outage leaves 30% of users without service for over 30 minutes

Posted:
in iCloud edited January 2014
Apple's iCloud-based iMessage service suffered a short outage on Tuesday that left about 30 percent of users without service for 36 minutes.

iMessage Status


According to Apple's System Status webpage, the service outage lasted from 3:35 p.m. to 4:11 p.m. Eastern and affected 30 percent of all iMessage users. That number was changed shortly after, with the notification saying "some" users were affected.

The brief interruption is the latest in a string of troubles for Apple's iCloud, which in June saw back-to-back outages affect 20 percent of users across multiple services, including iTunes Store purchases.

In April, a spate of issues hit iCloud email, GameCenter and iTunes, with Mail seeing downtime of 27 hours.

While Apple offers transparency in reporting when outages occur, the company rarely divulges causes. A contributor could be the massive amount of users attached to the service, which in March accounted for 27 percent of all cloud customers in the U.S., the most out of any service.

To deal with the rapid adoption rate, Apple is building out its cloud server infrastructure with a large datacenter in Reno, Nevada. On Monday, AppleInsider reported that the first structures were going up at the project site, which will ring up some $16 million in construction costs alone.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 18
    hydrhydr Posts: 146member


    Unacceptable Mr. Cue.


     


    Apple has a lot to learn when it comes to services, they obviously got iTunes working properly but are unable to get other services "right". I really hope they improve quickly on this.

  • Reply 2 of 18
    I was one of the 30%!
  • Reply 3 of 18
    slurpyslurpy Posts: 5,384member
    Oh Noes! Worst case scenario, your message will be sent as a text, or you can use one of the other 56,920 free message apps.

    "The brief interruption is the latest in a string of troubles for Apple's iCloud.."

    But well done with the sensationalism. Google services have outages all the time, but with Apple it's always "a string of troubles" whenever there's a minor glitch.
  • Reply 4 of 18
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,095member


    Wow.  36 minutes!  Oh the horror!  Sensationalist whiners.



    Sure, it would be nice if it were working 99.999% of the time, but come off it.  Considering the hundreds of millions of text messages that it does send per hour over how long between outages, I have better things to do.   If iMessage goes down, it comes across as a text message.  Big deal.



    Btw, how's that huge Android flaw affecting 99% of users doing?  Don't hear much about that!

  • Reply 5 of 18
    genovellegenovelle Posts: 1,480member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by hydr View Post


    Unacceptable Mr. Cue.


     


    Apple has a lot to learn when it comes to services, they obviously got iTunes working properly but are unable to get other services "right". I really hope they improve quickly on this.



    It funny how Google has multiple longer lasting outages every year affecting far more people and if thats all they use they don't even have access to the ones the already received. This saga continues.  I think one of the reason you don't hear about it is Google Advertises and also provides ad income to these information outlets.  They also control what shows up in searches so they can suppress anything not flattering. You have to be very specific to find anything bad about android or google when searching.  For instance.  Search for Android and you get nothing but positive articles including one that mentions a fix for the Giant security hole in Android being sent to Carriers. What is odd is that there was no mention of this problem until last week. It's been in the wild and they were informed in February. Even this article was done to make them look like heroes.  The first critical article was on page 6. Do the same for iPhone and outside of  links to people who sell iPhones other articles tend to be negative.  Even though the Apple sites have been fairly positive lately.  Odd huh?

  • Reply 6 of 18
    smurfmansmurfman Posts: 119member
    Wow, it's the end of the world!
  • Reply 8 of 18
    mjtomlinmjtomlin Posts: 2,673member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by hydr View Post


    Unacceptable Mr. Cue.


     


    Apple has a lot to learn when it comes to services, they obviously got iTunes working properly but are unable to get other services "right". I really hope they improve quickly on this.



     


    You're joking, right?


     


    iCloud's growth rate is the fastest of any Internet service ever, it's quite hard to scale from tens of millions of users to hundreds of millions in a couple of years. Be thankful they had the foresight to start building out their data centers when they did... If they hadn't, they could really have a huge mess on their hands.

  • Reply 9 of 18
    suddenly newtonsuddenly newton Posts: 13,819member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by daveinpublic View Post



    I was one of the 30%!


     


    Hello from the 70%!

  • Reply 10 of 18
    isteelersisteelers Posts: 738member
    Looks like the NSA needed some time to catch up.
  • Reply 11 of 18
    vorsosvorsos Posts: 302member


    Originally Posted by daveinpublic View Post



    I was one of the 30%!


    -------- Sent as Text Message --------

  • Reply 12 of 18
    conrailconrail Posts: 489member


    I always felt that iMessage was a solution in search of a problem.  But as long as it reverted to a standard text message, I can't see this being the end of the world or anything.

  • Reply 13 of 18
    macxpressmacxpress Posts: 5,808member
    Just goes to show you how much Apple sucks at cloud stuff. They always have and apparently don't care to fix anything. Yes, I'm a troll for going against Apple...at least I'm not a fanboy who thinks Apple never does anything wrong.
  • Reply 14 of 18


    After reading the "headline", I was really expecting to find a link to an article on The Onion. :)

  • Reply 15 of 18
    macxpressmacxpress Posts: 5,808member
    You shouldn't be surprised anymore...this is only like a weekly occurrence. Pretty soon probably a daily one.
  • Reply 16 of 18
    tyler82tyler82 Posts: 1,102member
    sflocal wrote: »
    Wow.  36 minutes!  Oh the horror!  Sensationalist whiners.


    Sure, it would be nice if it were working 99.999% of the time, but come off it.  Considering the hundreds of millions of text messages that it does send per hour over how long between outages, I have better things to do.   If iMessage goes down, it comes across as a text message.  Big deal.


    Btw, how's that huge Android flaw affecting 99% of users doing?  Don't hear much about that!
    It only comes across as text message if you are using an iPhone, with a cellular signal. iPad and Mac, not so much.
  • Reply 17 of 18
    macxpressmacxpress Posts: 5,808member
    tyler82 wrote: »
    It only comes across as text message if you are using an iPhone, with a cellular signal. iPad and Mac, not so much.

    Very well said...but you can't convince fanboys on this forum to believe this. That would mean they'd have to call Apple out on something which is against their religion. BTW you are now considered a troll in their mind.
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