Overnight outage of Apple's iCloud, online store lingers for hours [u]
Apple's iCloud service experienced an overnight outage, with some users unable to access Calendar and other features, while the company's online store saw a five-hour period of inaccessibility for updates.
Update: Apple's online store was unavailable from midnight until 5 a.m. Eastern time. The iCloud services outage lasted about an hour, according to Apple.
Apple's System Status page lists the iCloud outage as beginning around 9:30 PM EST. As of this writing, the outage is ongoing, and Apple notes that some users may be unable to access the Calendar and Reminders web applications at iCloud.com.
Apple's online services have experienced a number of outages over the past several months. In June, iCloud and iTunes users were unable to access those features for nearly an hour and a half. August also saw services like Photo Stream, iMessage, and iPhoto Journals rendered inaccessible.
It is unclear what caused the current service interruption, and Apple has not commented on the issue.
Apple's online retail portal is also currently inaccessible. The store typically goes down before the unveiling of a new Apple product, but the System Status page lists the store as undergoing maintenance. That maintenance is scheduled to run through 4:00 AM EST.
Update: Apple's online store was unavailable from midnight until 5 a.m. Eastern time. The iCloud services outage lasted about an hour, according to Apple.
Apple's System Status page lists the iCloud outage as beginning around 9:30 PM EST. As of this writing, the outage is ongoing, and Apple notes that some users may be unable to access the Calendar and Reminders web applications at iCloud.com.
Apple's online services have experienced a number of outages over the past several months. In June, iCloud and iTunes users were unable to access those features for nearly an hour and a half. August also saw services like Photo Stream, iMessage, and iPhoto Journals rendered inaccessible.
It is unclear what caused the current service interruption, and Apple has not commented on the issue.
Apple's online retail portal is also currently inaccessible. The store typically goes down before the unveiling of a new Apple product, but the System Status page lists the store as undergoing maintenance. That maintenance is scheduled to run through 4:00 AM EST.
Comments
If anything this is an area Apple could learn from Google. Ever heard of Google search , Gmail going offline ?
Looks like Apples running into service issue too often these days. Don't know what's going on at there data centers.
If anything this is an area Apple could learn from Google. Ever heard of Google search , Gmail going offline ?
Actually, yes. My company uses Google for scheduling, mail, documents, etc. There have been several outages of mail, chat, hangouts, and documents. So, while Google is usually reliable, they are not infalible.
Actually, yes. My company uses Google for scheduling, mail, documents, etc. There have been several outages of mail, chat, hangouts, and documents. So, while Google is usually reliable, they are not infalible.
Interesting, so service outages is more of an industry event ... But at least the most hottest services from Google, like Search and Public Gmail, stay up and running all the time.
Looks like Apples running into service issue too often these days. Don't know what's going on at there data centers.
If anything this is an area Apple could learn from Google. Ever heard of Google search , Gmail going offline ?
Yes, lots of times.
The thing is: It's much more important when iMessage is down to 0,0000001% of users than when gmail is down to everyone.
Actually, yes. My company uses Google for scheduling, mail, documents, etc. There have been several outages of mail, chat, hangouts, and documents. So, while Google is usually reliable, they are not infalible.
Interesting, so service outages is more of an industry event ... But at least the most hottest services from Google, like Search and Public Gmail, stay up and running all the time.
Lol is this guy on crack? Can't he even use google search to see how wrong he is? Does he even know that often when icloud is "down", it is down for a fraction of their users?
Looks like normal scheduled maintenance downtime.
Would be nice if the phone apps could convey a maintenance message somehow
The iCloud status page shows which outages are planned and which are not, along with a few other details. The link is right there in the article. In this instance there was both a planned outage for updating the Apple Store and an unplanned one lasting a little over three hours affecting some users of Calendars and Reminders. There's been an average of one outage a week over the past couple of months (generally not lengthy ones either), which is not horrible but there's always room for improvement.
Yay another outage. Got to be at least the 100th one this month! iCloud reliability sucks!
You forgot the /s at the end...
Lol is this guy on crack? Can't he even use google search to see how wrong he is? Does he even know that often when icloud is "down", it is down for a fraction of their users?
Nope it doesn't require being on crack, to observe when service outages become too frequent !
There is no "overnight" for iCloud!
Yes, absolutely. While Google is better than Apple in this area there was just gmail blackout not so long ago.
Looks like Apples running into service issue too often these days. Don't know what's going on at there data centers.
If anything this is an area Apple could learn from Google. Ever heard of Google search , Gmail going offline ?
Clouds are tricky, and clouds are hard. Steve tried to get in the Cloud business early and dove in with a little bit of naivite (I think those might even be his own words). He learned that the Cloud business required an entire different skill set than Apple was proficient at and killed their version of a cloud entirely and offloaded it to Amazon and Microsoft (don't confuse the actual Cloud with the cloud *services* which require the cloud to run on top of- Apple's cloud services were among the best of their time).
It was definitely the right call for Apple at the time, but it is also critical that they 'take it back' and develop their own. Enter iCloud. It does seem to be having growing pains, but other services do go down too. Might be a good topic for DED to bird dog and see if he can get actual hard data and show whether iCloud being less reliable is based on fact or farce. If the data supports iCloud is less reliable I think he wouldn't be inclined to publish it (this is after all AppleInsider), but it could serve to show over time how much iCloud is improving- and I'm sure it will.
One school is that Apple doesn't need to improve iCloud because users are largely locked in to it. Another school is that Apple always strives to deliver the best experience so they will put more resources into it. I'd definitely put my money on Apple delivering. Give them a little time.
Clouds are tricky, and clouds are hard. Steve tried to get in the Cloud business early and dove in with a little bit of naivite (I think those might even be his own words). He learned that the Cloud business required an entire different skill set than Apple was proficient at and killed their version of a cloud entirely and offloaded it to Amazon and Microsoft (don't confuse the actual Cloud with the cloud *services* which require the cloud to run on top of- Apple's cloud services were among the best of their time).
It was definitely the right call for Apple at the time, but it is also critical that they 'take it back' and develop their own. Enter iCloud. It does seem to be having growing pains, but other services do go down too. Might be a good topic for DED to bird dog and see if he can get actual hard data and show whether iCloud being less reliable is based on fact or farce. If the data supports iCloud is less reliable I think he wouldn't be inclined to publish it (this is after all AppleInsider), but it could serve to show over time how much iCloud is improving- and I'm sure it will.
One school is that Apple doesn't need to improve iCloud because users are largely locked in to it. Another school is that Apple always strives to deliver the best experience so they will put more resources into it. I'd definitely put my money on Apple delivering. Give them a little time.
Oh yes, I have confidence in Apple's ability to create best in class cloud services.
Like the new iWorks in iCloud blow's every other online document creating tool by a mile. It's pretty good stuff. I have no doubt in Apple's expertise in building great apps for the cloud.
They just need to figure out how to improve reliability to keep it running round the clock.
If that was the case I seriously hope Apple will get out of the tech industry altogether!
Oh yes, I have confidence in Apple's ability to create best in class cloud services.
Like the new iWorks in iCloud blow's every other online document creating tool by a mile. It's pretty good stuff. I have no doubt in Apple's expertise in building great apps for the cloud.
They just need to figure out how to improve reliability to keep it running round the clock.
No one disputes the quality of iWork for iCloud when it works. The gripes with apple's cloud services have all been about uptime. Right now iCloud has no uptime guarantees in form of SLAs.