Apple iMessage And FaceTime Outages Affect iOS Users

Apple has confirmed its iMessage and Facetime services suffered outages last night but has not revealed why they were disrupted.

An update on Apple’s status page confirmed iOS users were unable to access either service between 8pm and 1am Pacific Time, which would be between 4am and 9am in the UK.

iMessage outages

FaceTime, which lets users make video calls between compatible iPhone and iPad devices, and iMessage, which sends messages over a 3G or 4G connection instead of SMS, are also available on Mac OS X.

The ironically named ‘Detailed timeline’ simply says that “users were unable to place FaceTime calls” and “users were unable to use iMessage”, without offering further explanation. Apple had not responded to requests for comment at the time of publication.

Frustrated iOS users flocked to Twitter to complain about the outages, saying their messages were being sent as texts instead.

Users wanting an alternative messaging application could have turned to WhatsApp, a similar cross-platform instant messaging service that is reportedly interesting Google. The search giant had been linked with a $1 billion bid for the company, but WhatsApp has denied the reports.

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