Yesterday, thousands of Apple users across the United States reported issues with sending iMessage texts. According to an outage monitoring site, the outage affected 75% of users who reported issues sending messages. Other apps including Apple Messages for Business, FaceTime, and HomeKit were also hit by the outages at the same time. However, Apple confirmed that the issues have been resolved.
Apple’s system status page reported that these services have since been restored, but the company did not specify the number of users affected or what caused the outages. The Epoch Times reached out to Apple for comments but did not hear back by publication time.
The issue resulted in users receiving a red exclamation mark with an alert that said “Not Delivered” when attempting to send a message. Apple advised users to check their network connection, tap the red exclamation mark, and then tap “Try Again.” If the problem persisted, users could opt to send iMessages as text messages.
Interestingly, some social media users speculated that the iPhone’s “Attention Aware Features” may have contributed to the issue. The feature detects whether a user is looking at their iPhone and can adjust volume levels accordingly.
Such outages are not uncommon, as technology can be susceptible to disruptions. However, considering Apple’s global reach and the sheer number of users affected, the company’s response will be closely scrutinized. In recent years, Apple has made a significant investment in its worldwide data center infrastructure to both improve services and bolster security against cyber attacks.
Apple’s messaging services, including iMessage, are a crucial part of the company’s ecosystem and are popular among users as they offer data encryption and thus provide a secure messaging format. It is not immediately clear if the outage impacted any other services or if any user data was compromised.
According to SimilarWeb, a website that provides insights on web traffic data, iMessage is one of the most popular apps in the world, particularly in the US. It is estimated that the app is used by over one billion people globally.
This latest outage may be an indication of ongoing challenges in maintenance and service delivery, as well as the need for ongoing investment in infrastructure and cybersecurity to maintain the trust of Apple’s billions of users worldwide.
To sum up, Apple users across the United States reported yesterday issues with sending iMessage texts and other apps, including FaceTime and Apple Messages for Business. These services have since been restored, but Apple has not specified the number of affected users or what caused the outages. Some social media users speculated that the iPhone’s “Attention Aware Features” may have contributed to the issue. The outage may be an indication of ongoing challenges in maintenance and service delivery, as well as the need for ongoing investment in infrastructure and cybersecurity to maintain the trust of Apple’s billions of users worldwide
