Apple iMessage reportedly suffers sporadic worldwide outages
Apple's in-house instant messaging service, iMessage, is allegedly experiencing outages across the globe as users are reporting problems sending and receiving messages.
Despite displaying an "all clear" on its iCloud status website, iMessage users form around the world are complaining of sporadic service outages, according to reports from Apple's online Support Communities on Monday.
Source: Apple
While the exact problem is currently unknown, it appears to be originating at Apple's servers as some users claim wireless provider-based SMS text messages are going through without issue. No effective workarounds have been found thus far, and Apple has yet to comment on the matter.
First introduced with iOS 5, the BlackBerry Messenger-esque iMessage, previously iMessage, has become Apple's smartphone-integrated answer to online messaging services like AOL Instant Messenger and Google Chat. The service is data based, allowing Wi-Fi connected iOS device users to communicate without racking up text fees. With OS X Mountain Lion, Apple expanded iMessage to Macs, and the operating system's upcoming 10.8.2 update will bring extended functionality like phone number support.
Monday's iMessage issues come on the heels of an iCloud email outage last week that affected 1.1 percent of the service's user base.
Despite displaying an "all clear" on its iCloud status website, iMessage users form around the world are complaining of sporadic service outages, according to reports from Apple's online Support Communities on Monday.
Source: Apple
While the exact problem is currently unknown, it appears to be originating at Apple's servers as some users claim wireless provider-based SMS text messages are going through without issue. No effective workarounds have been found thus far, and Apple has yet to comment on the matter.
First introduced with iOS 5, the BlackBerry Messenger-esque iMessage, previously iMessage, has become Apple's smartphone-integrated answer to online messaging services like AOL Instant Messenger and Google Chat. The service is data based, allowing Wi-Fi connected iOS device users to communicate without racking up text fees. With OS X Mountain Lion, Apple expanded iMessage to Macs, and the operating system's upcoming 10.8.2 update will bring extended functionality like phone number support.
Monday's iMessage issues come on the heels of an iCloud email outage last week that affected 1.1 percent of the service's user base.
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by Seankill
I message sucks, it is never is reliable
Apple should've invested in Twitter before it got too popular.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Seankill
I message sucks, it is never is reliable
I've been using it almost a year. worked great up until this morning.Message BETA on Mountain Lion will not send/receive pictures though.
iMessage has worked perfectly for me since it came out. It's working fine for me this morning as well.
I always thought iMessage worked fine ... until I was talking to my girlfriend one day and I asked her why she didn't response to one of my messages (not an important one, but that still required an answer). She had no idea what I was talking about, so I showed her my phone, which showed the message as being "delivered." Then she showed me her phone, and all the other messages where there, but not the one I asked her about. She never got it. Then she mentioned there were a couple times she messaged me, and I never responded ... I NEVER got those messages.
I'd say, on average, it happens maybe once or twice a month, and we message each other at least three or four times a day (depending on our schedules). Now if something like that happens, and I don't hear back after a reasonable amount of time I call and leave a voicemail.
Originally Posted by Seankill
I message sucks, it is never is reliable
The exact opposite is true in my experience, including now.
iMessage is my least used app for communication. I use Whatsapp and KakaoTalk a lot more since those work across multiple platforms, not just iOS.
I've not had problems sending or receiving, but iMessage RARELY updates conversations on multiple devices as it should.
One reason that could be happening is that people are sending to your phone number, not your email address.
As for today, I was having all kinds of issues with it. I cut it off for now and am using text messages only.
In my experience, pretty much all of the data-based messaging apps sometimes fail to deliver messages. Ironically, the decades-old SMS is by far the most reliable (but also the most limited). iMessage's biggest failure is that is explicitly states a message was delivered, when in fact it may not have been. A message should not be marked as delivered unless the system has a confirmation that it was delivered to the recipients devices, not just a "message was sent and we assume it was delivered".
Another example, Facebook used to only timestamp a message once it was confirmed to have been added to the chat stream. But they've since updated the app to make it look like messages are delivered faster. Now they are timestamped when they are sent, and you don't always know if it actually made it to the chat stream. HeyTel also fails to immediately deliver some messages. But at least for these two apps, the messages do eventually show up (or you get an indicator that they weren't delivered). It appears iMessage is completely losing some messages but acting as if they were delivered. Bad. And speaking as someone who has severel long-distance friendships, very frustrating.
Guess I'll stick with FB for now, those messages eventually get delivered. Besides, I know far more people on FB than have an iOS device.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SolipsismX
One reason that could be happening is that people are sending to your phone number, not your email address.
Yes, all iMessage conversations are via my phone number. I'm not sure why that should matter. If I'm having a conversation with my SO between Mac and iPhone, and then switch to iPhone and iPhone or iPad and iPhone the conversation should update, No? It's an advertised feature to pick up your conversation where you left off on any Mac or iOS device....
So if I send a message to my wife when her phone doesn't have service, her iPad (at home) gets the message, but it does not update the iPhone when it gets back into a service area.
This is a big problem, IMO.
Until iOS 6, the iPad could not use your phone number for iMessage, it had to be an AppleID shaped like an email address. Messages on MacOS cannot (yet) use the phone number for Caller ID. I suspect that will change on or shortly after 9/19.
Edit: Messages on the iPad and Mac are able to send iMessages to an iOS device phone number.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ChristophB
Until iOS 6, the iPad could not use your phone number for iMessage, it had to be an AppleID shaped like an email address. Messages on MacOS cannot (yet) use the phone number for Caller ID. I suspect that will change on or shortly after 9/19.
Edit: Messages on the iPad and Mac are able to send iMessages to an iOS device phone number.
But I DO get some messages from iPhone to Mac, just not all the time.. It seems to be hit or miss.
I have 2 AppleIDs
first.last -- I buy content with this one
[email protected] -- former mobileme and converted to iCloud
I use the first.last AppleID as my Messages account on on all my devices. I configure my [email protected] and my [email protected] to also receive iMessages. I then set CallerID to be my iPhone phone number on both my iPhone & iPad (and soon to be Mac if my "guess" about 10.8.2 is accurate). This way all conversations I begin will start from the same source. Replies won't get mixed in. At that 10.8.2 point, I'll probably take the emails off so people are forced to initiate to my phone number. One ID to serve them all.
P.S. I experienced the iMessage issue today. Only the 2nd interruption that I've noticed since the service went live.