Apple has experienced major outages in some of its six US-based data centres, locking people out of their iCloud accounts and preventing them from logging into iPhone and Mac devices with Apple ID.
The outages caused many users mistakenly to assume there was a problem with their personal device or password. “Apple ID” has been trending on Twitter, with many people reaching out to Apple for clarity or to mistakenly report they had been hacked.
The issues were related to Game Center, iCloud back up, iCloud storage upgrades, iCloud Web Apps, iCloud mail, iMessage and Photos. The outages appear to have been global, with users from multiple countries sharing screenshot images of being locked out in a variety of languages.
“Apple services have been fairly stable so this incident stands out,” said Alp Toker, director at NetBlocks, which tracks disruptions on the internet. “The incident was unusual enough that users around the world blamed their own devices or their internet providers.”
Apple’s official page for cloud services counted seven outages over several hours. All issues began at 3.15pm pacific time (11:15pm in Ireland).
A message posted by Apple at around 4:30 this morning Irish time stated that all issues had been resolved.
According to DataCenters.com, Apple has six data centres in the US. Its newest facility in Mesa, Arizona, is not counted however, and it is the largest of them all, the 1.3 million square foot building reportedly costing $2 billion and launching in 2017. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2022
