Apple explains iTunes, App Store downtime
Apple’s virtual stores were back online Wednesday after eleven hours of outages affected users around the world.
The App Store, Mac App Store and iTunes Store were out of order, and users trying to download or update were stymied by error messages. Apple’s iBooks virtual bookshop and iCloud mail and accounts were also affected.
In a statement to US financial broadcaster CNBC, Apple apologised for the downtime, which it said was caused by an internal domain name system (DNS) error.
“We’re working to make all of the services available to customers as soon as possible, and we thank everyone for their patience,” the statement read.
At timeline on Apple’s System Status page showed the outages began at 0900 GMT and ended at 2000 GMT.
Bloomberg News reported users in the United States, Switzerland, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom were receiving error messages when trying to access the stores’ services.
Tech news website The Next Web reported users in 39 more countries on six continents had also reported problems.
The glitch is likely to cost Apple millions. Last year, Apple earned 50 million dollars a day on average from its online stores, according to the Chicago Tribune.
That’s still a drop in the bucket for the world’s most valuable company. Apple took in 200 billion dollars in revenue in 2014.
The outage came two days after Apple’s glitzy, star-studded launch of its luxury tech accessory Apple Watch and a MacBook laptop re-engineered to a futuristic thinness.
But Wednesday, the world saw the company still had feet of clay.
One Twitter user posted a photo of Apple Store employees in Birmingham, England apparently using a 20th-century credit card imprinter to ring up purchases normally run online.
“Never thought I would see one of these old school card machines in the Apple Store,” Nathan Ziabek wrote on Twitter.
And Twitter user Holly Goldin had some advice for the company.
“Dear AppStore,” she wrote, “Did you try turning it off and then back on again?”
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