Apple TV Outage: Streaming Service Resumed For US Users After Downtime

Apple's streaming platform went down late on Thursday, affecting users in the US and Canada, according to Apple's official status page. The issue also hit Apple Music and Apple Arcade; all services have since been restored.

According to Downdetector.com, the number of user complaints peaked at almost 13,000 before decreasing to just over 200 as the problem was resolved. The outage happened just shortly after the highly publicized series, "Pluribus," by the "Breaking Bad" creator, was released.

Apple Addresses Glitch in Streaming Service

Reuters reported that Apple confirmed the outage on its status page, which lists the matter as resolved after about an hour and a half. The service interruption was brief, but it came at a particularly poor time, coinciding with the launch of one of the first major series to get heavy promotion as an Apple flagship exclusive, "Pluribus."

Just in time, fans want to watch the first two episodes of the series, but the downtime came at the wrong time for Apple. Technical reliability around high-profile releases is crucial in maintaining subscriber trust and engagement, especially with the competition from other platforms like Hulu and Amazon.

"Mine literally just crashed, too. Came here to make sure it wasn't just me!" a Redditor wrote on r/appletv subreddit.

Another user noticed that while his other apps play fine, the Apple TV is exempted.

"Same here. I'm in the middle of watching the first episode of Pluribus when it just stopped," another person wrote.

Wider Impact on Apple Services

According to Bloomberg, the outage was not confined to Apple TV. Users also reported spotty service from both Apple Music and Apple Arcade. They were restored later on.

The Cupertino tech titan has leaned heavily upon its services division, which reached a record $28.8 billion in revenue during the September quarter, as one of its main drivers of growth.