Skip to main content

Apple Music and App Store return to normal after early morning outages

Apple Music, App Store, and Mac App Store services have been returned to normal after outages affecting “some users” were reported on Apple’s system status page, just one day after Apple released the first developer betas of iOS 13 and MacOS Catalina to developers.

The issues themselves began at around 5 a.m. PT on Tuesday, and according to Apple, were returned to normal a little after 8 a.m. It’s currently unclear if the outages had anything to do with the release of Apple’s new operating systems to developers, or if the two are unrelated.

It seems as though during the outages, users were completely unable to access the affected services. Usually, when Apple experiences issues with its services, it indicates as such with a yellow circle next to those services on its system status page. For a full outage, a red circle is instead there, but the red circle is almost never used. Still, Apple is, of course, quick to downplay the issue, noting that only “some users” were affected, and that it was investigating.

Apple just revamped its music-related services at its Worldwide Developers Conference, finally doing away with iTunes branding in favor of separate Mac apps for Music, Podcasts, and TV. When it comes to Music, the change seems to be mostly branding — Apple will keep the ability to rip music from CDs and allow users to purchase downloads in the Music app, so it won’t totally revolve around the Apple Music streaming service. The Podcasts app, on the other hand, will likely be a Project Marzipan version of the Podcasts app for iOS. Project Marzipan is Apple’s attempt to allow developers to port iOS apps over to the Mac.

Of course, while the services mark a difference for how users will interact with their music, podcasts, and TV shows, there may not be a major difference on Apple’s back-end, meaning that hopefully there won’t be too many more outages over the next few months. The new operating systems — iOS 13, iPadOS, MacOS, and WatchOS — are set to roll out to the public in the fall, likely alongside Apple’s new iPhone and Apple Watch models at its September event.

Editors' Recommendations

Christian de Looper
Christian’s interest in technology began as a child in Australia, when he stumbled upon a computer at a garage sale that he…
No, you can’t use an Apple gift card on Apple Pay
Photo of Apple gift cards.

A viral TikTok has made the internet rounds, showing a person who thought that they could transfer Apple gift card funds to Apple Pay. After buying a $300 Apple gift card, however, they quickly learned that that's simply not possible. While their choice might seem misguided in hindsight, there are plenty of people who have been left confused about the differences between Apple gift cards and Apple Pay.

While having a $300 Apple gift card certainly has its uses — such as buying 10 years of Apple Music, as the original poster jokingly pointed out — it's certainly not the same as having that same money to spend freely with Apple Pay. To avoid making the same mistake as this TikTok user, make sure that you understand the distinctions between the two Apple services, as it might just save you $300 (or more).
You cannot add Apple gift cards to Apple Pay

Read more
It’s not just you: the Apple Weather app is down
Cloudy weather showing in iOS 15's weather app.

Stop trying to force quit apps or restart your phone, it isn't going to help. It's not just you, Apple's Weather app is down right now. There were some sporadic issues yesterday, but it seems more widespread this morning.

Whether it's on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac -- the back-end service running Apple's Weather app seems to be having issues loading data. Sometimes the home screen widget won't work; other times you'll get one or two locations in your list to update, but not the rest. Other times it all looks good, but the hour-by-hour forecast details aren't working. That's frustrating!

Read more
Apple cracks down on ChatGPT apps with harsh age ratings
App Store on-screen illustration

Apple is in a deadlock with email app BlueMail over its decision to give the app's latest update an age restriction of 17 and older due to its ChatGPT integration.

Apple is currently blocking the update because the app's developer Blix Inc. disagrees with the company's stance to give BlueMail an age restriction, having rejected the brand's update application last week, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Read more