Apple outage knocks iCloud, App Store and other key services offline

Many of Apple’s most popular apps appeared to be experiencing a widespread outage on Monday afternoon, with users reporting difficulty accessing core features and services.

DownDetector, a site that tracks website outages, reported a spike in user reports for Apple Maps, Apple Music, Apple News, Apple TV+, iCloud, the App Store, the Apple Store, iMessage and the “Find My Phone” service.

“Can’t make purchases, download apps, update phone,” one user wrote on DownDetector.

The problems seemed to start just before 1 p.m. ET, with many users noting errors messages and otherwise reporting the services weren’t working properly.

Apple’s “System Status” page confirmed outages for several services as of 1:45 p.m. ET. Various messages on the page indicated the company was investigating the cause and that service for customers might be slow or entirely unavailable.  The company was also responding to individual reports from users on Twitter.

The problems seemed to be extensive. Bloomberg reported that Apple’s corporate and retail internal computer systems were also down, making it difficult for employees to work remotely or conduct business at the company’s stores.