Apple online outage impacts retail outlets in US, Europe

Posted:
in General Discussion edited March 2015
The extended outage of Apple's online services on Wednesday appears to have impacted not just its online stores, but also its retail outlets, which suffered problems conducting basic business operations.




For two hours yesterday, some European Apple Stores couldn't punch in workers, conduct sales, or handle Genius Bar appointments, a source told Business Insider. Staff were reportedly unable to even check their email until about 3 p.m. GMT.

While sales and services were hampered, workers were left with little to do except answer phones and talk to store visitors. Many phone calls were reportedly complaints about Apple's online services.

A Twitter user also observed that at one outlet in Birmingham, England, clerks resorted to using analog credit card readers to continue business.

In addition, a number of stores experienced trouble in the U.S. and the U.K., suggesting that the outage affected Apple retail on a global scale, according to The Next Web.

The company issued a rare apology on Wednesday after the iTunes Store, iBookstore, and Mac and iOS App Stores had been down for over seven hours.

The issue was blamed on "an internal DNS error," and only fully resolved sometime after 4 p.m. Eastern or 8 p.m. GMT. For a time iCloud mail and account services were also impacted, but those difficulties were fixed in relatively short order.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 28
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    Shit happens.
  • Reply 2 of 28

    I would hope this would spur a rethink of the current system. Accidents do happen, but Apple can't afford for them to go on that long either.

  • Reply 3 of 28
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    I still say this was probably hacking related.
  • Reply 4 of 28
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by SpamSandwich View Post



    I still say this was probably hacking related.



    Or Apple did a check of their systems and found some NSA/CIA crap on there, decided to trash it and start over.

  • Reply 5 of 28
    rot'napplerot'napple Posts: 1,839member
    Reminds me of that line in the movie "Spaceballs", when they went to turn off the self-destruction switch and it was tagged as 'out of order' and the Mel Brooks President character said, "F*ck, even in the future nothing works!"

    Bottom line, technology snafus aren't impervious to giving one a massive headache, even if branded Apple.
  • Reply 6 of 28
    paxmanpaxman Posts: 4,729member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by TheWhiteFalcon View Post

     

    I would hope this would spur a rethink of the current system. Accidents do happen, but Apple can't afford for them to go on that long either.




    T'is true. When you are as big as Apple little stuff is no longer so 'little'. The biggest problem over time is Apple's reputation. With all the new services Apple is introducing reliability is ever more crucial. From email to ?Pay - they all require 100% uptime. Hour long outages are big inconveniences that piss people off and although nobody's gonna die (hmmm.... HealthKit?), a bad rep is an opportunity for your competitors. Not that Apple isn't aware. 

  • Reply 7 of 28
    paxmanpaxman Posts: 4,729member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Rot'nApple View Post



    Reminds me of that line in the movie "Spaceballs", when they went to turn off the self-destruction switch and it was tagged as 'out of order' and the Mel Brooks President character said, "F*ck, even in the future nothing works!"

    :)

     
    Bottom line, technology snafus aren't impervious to giving one a massive headache, even if branded Apple.

    I think massive is an understatement. When services go down worldwide I bet one or two people within Apple feel their neck muscles tightening up. As the minutes and hours go on....

  • Reply 8 of 28
    jungmarkjungmark Posts: 6,926member
    Doooomed! Alternate NYT headline: Apple services hacked.

    Then the "article" will explain in paragraph 6 that it was an internal error and justifies the headline with some nonsense.
  • Reply 9 of 28
    paxmanpaxman Posts: 4,729member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by sog35 View Post

     

     

    give me a break.  If what you say is true Apple would not have sold 75,000,000 iPhones last quarter and make the most profit in the history of man.

     

    We had bendgate, iCloud hack, various other software bugs.  Did not matter. AT ALL.  

     

    People want the best product.  But they don't expect absolute perfection.  And Apple products are the closest thing to perfection on the market right now.  




    Not arguing with any of that. My point still stands, though.

  • Reply 10 of 28
    paxmanpaxman Posts: 4,729member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by sog35 View Post

     

    Name a single company that never had their system go down temporarily......................


    Can't. And suspect there never will be one.

  • Reply 11 of 28
    wigginwiggin Posts: 2,265member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by sog35 View Post

     

     

    Name a single company that never had their system go down temporarily......................


     

    Fair statement, but Apple also has a fairly long history of not having the most reliable cloud services. Those relatively new to the platform are blissfully unaware of that history. And recently Apple has done better. But those of us who have been around awhile know that this is an area Apple needs to keep improving on. As a previous poster said, sh*t happens. But it can't take this long to get it back up and running. Especially if they want to have control over so much of our everyday lives (email, Apple Pay, iMessages, all of our media and personal photos in the cloud, etc). Even more so when you have 100s of billions of dollars sitting in the bank.

  • Reply 12 of 28
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by sog35 View Post

     

    Name a single company that never had their system go down temporarily......................


     

    The Honourable East India Company

  • Reply 13 of 28
    paxmanpaxman Posts: 4,729member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by sog35 View Post

     

    Whats your point?  You want Apple to be perfect so the press does not have a reason to spew BS? 

     

    Seriously whats your point?


    What? Are you spoiling for a fight this morning? And seriously, you don't get my point? And where did I say I want Apple to be perfect? I am sure everybody at Apple does, and yeah, now that you mention it I'd like that, too.

     

    Let me try to explain (shakes head). I simply agreed with TheWhiteFalcon and added a comment. That comment essentially being that now that Apple is massive, small mistakes matter more. Now that Apple is introducing some really important services it is more important than ever that these are reliable (I refer to Wiggin's post above). To what Wiggin better explained than myself, I added the point about 'reputation'. I think Wigging gets this because like me and many others here, and famously including Steve Jobs, he has experienced first hand some less than stellar Apple web services. Is it so hard to understand that with these new high profile services reliability reputation is important?



    Jeez, dude. You are all jumping up and down over very little, here. Seriously.

  • Reply 14 of 28
    dasanman69dasanman69 Posts: 13,002member
    rot'napple wrote: »
    Reminds me of that line in the movie "Spaceballs", when they went to turn off the self-destruction switch and it was tagged as 'out of order' and the Mel Brooks President character said, "F*ck, even in the future nothing works!"

    Bottom line, technology snafus aren't impervious to giving one a massive headache, even if branded Apple.

    And you reminded me of this scene. :lol:

  • Reply 15 of 28
    croprcropr Posts: 1,122member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by sog35 View Post

     

     

    Name a single company that never had their system go down temporarily......................


     

     

    Well  the outage yesterday came on the worst possible moment for me and costed me 500 Euro.  I had planned to hand over an app I have developed to a customer, we tried form 9pm until 6pm but we failed miserably to install the app on their iPads.  I don't care if any IT system of every single company goes down from time to time, but I do care if it costs me money.

     

    Yesterday I managed to get the Android version accepted and for the record, I never experienced an outage on the Google Play store that took all day.

     

    Apple may have great products, but in its services department there are definitely opportunities for improvement.

  • Reply 16 of 28
    jkichlinejkichline Posts: 1,369member

    Sure, shit happens... but thanks to Apple's App Store being down, I lost half a day of sales. So glad I give them 30% of sales...

  • Reply 17 of 28
    paxmanpaxman Posts: 4,729member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by sog35 View Post

     

     

    So what is your point?

     

    It would be nice if their services NEVER went down.  But all services go down.  That's my point.  When was the last time iCloud was down?  i don't even remember.  Any one with half a brain knows if you have something is MISSION CRITICAL you have a backup plan and a backup service.  If you have something so vital that it needs to be ALWAYS AVAILABLE you don't rely on just one service provider.

     

    So you are saying its important for Apple never to be down.  You are asking them to do something impossible.

     

    Do you seriously think an iPhone user will switch to Android just because iCloud was down ONCE for a few hours?  Get real.  


    So your point is that all services go down? Wow! Holy Epiphany!  Do I think an iPhone user would switch to Android because of one iCloud screw-up? What is the matter with you? When did I ever suggest such a thing? Lets just drop this because you're just being obstinate and this discussion is a one way street to nowhere. 

  • Reply 18 of 28
    ipenipen Posts: 410member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by sog35 View Post

     

     

    Name a single company that never had their system go down temporarily......................


     

    There are still some local mom and pop companies doing business the old way, a system that never goes down.

  • Reply 19 of 28
    ipenipen Posts: 410member

    Seems like Apple was testing their D&R system for the very first time, and the drill took 5 hours to get it back online.  Hope they can do better next time.  My company's annual D&R testing took 30 min. to get everything back online, and even with that, the execs still want to shave the time for the next drill.

  • Reply 20 of 28
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by sog35 View Post

     
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mstone View Post

     

     

    The Honourable East India Company


     

    I recall in 1718 there flagship was highjacked by pirates.  




    Which was just one ship not the entire fleet.

     

    I think my point is best illustrated by the saying which I have quoted before on the forum:

     

    "To err is human - to really foul things up, you need a computer."

     

    We as a society sometimes become complacent, not realizing that everything we depend on is controlled by computers and vulnerable to a cyber attack or natural disaster. Even the distributed nature of DNS can be disrupted on a global scale. With everything being so interconnected, a lot of services could fail simultaneously. Where I live in the mountains of western Panama we are very familiar with power, water and communications outages and I for one am well prepared for them. In California we have the same readiness because of potential earthquakes, but many people are disillusioned into thinking that the lights will always be on and toilets will flush, and the TV will work, and the grocery store will be open, when in reality, it could all be interrupted for an unknown length of time, at anytime, without warning.

     

    I remember in the mid 90s that the entire west coast of the US was without power for some 10 hours because of a forest fire in eastern Washington state that burned a high voltage line which triggered an automatic shutdown of the whole power grid. We couldn't even buy a can of soda because the cash registers wouldn't work. We finally were able to find a small family owned convenience store that let us buy something to drink and they just gave us our change from their pocket.

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