Users have said that iMessage is being sluggish and unresponsive and often refusing to send messages. 9to5Mac reports that messages take abnormally long to send when it does work and are sometimes sent as both an iMessage and SMS, rather than one. Most images seem to completely fail to send.
Apple has not updated its system status page to confirm the existence of any problems. iPhone, iPad and Mac owners are all reporting issues with the service though, indicating that it is widespread.
Apple’s most recent service outage affected iCloud last month. The company did report that on its status pages, so it may simply be unaware of the iMessage issues or already working to resolve them.
Some users have reported that restarting the device or disabling and then enabling iMessage has helped it to start working properly again. The issue seems to be largely U.S.-centric and many U.K. news sites have noted that reports of the outage seem to be subsiding now that it is night in the U.S..
Users have joked that singer Taylor Swift should write another letter to the company after her previous success this week. Apple responded to her concerns about how artists were not going to be paid during the three-month free trial of its upcoming Apple Music service and announced yesterday that it had agreed to give artists payment during this period after all.
iMessage is used by millions worldwide to send and receive instant text messages via SMS or the Internet on iPhones. It usually allows quick and free communication between iPhones and the sending of SMS text messages to non-iPhones but it seems as though the “instant” aspect has unfortunately disappeared for many in the past few hours.
