Widespread reports of iMessage outages plaguing iOS users

We’ve been getting reports this morning from tipsters that Apple’s iMessage service is down. These reports seem to be backed up by searches on Twitter which show hundreds of angry customers posting messages every minute.

The problems seem to be affecting all kinds of iOS users. As of now, Apple’s iCloud status page shows no problems. We’ve tested here locally and are seeing some issues with devices on a variety of carriers including Verizon, AT&T and others. iMessage doesn’t use the carrier SMS system to communicate, but the service having problems across carriers indicates that this is, at least, not a network specific problem.

Interestingly, iMessages coming from Apple IDs and on WiFi are having less problems, but still face delayed deliveries. It’s the iMessages coming over the carrier networks that seem to be displaying the worst issues.

iMessage has been a bit rocky for the past day or so, but the recent issues seem to have appeared around 10:30 AM PST. Since then, the complaints have been ramping up.

happy to know iMessage is down everywhere….i thought my phone finally died at first

— Sonny P(@theSonnyPshow) September 17, 2012

Obviously iPhone users can fall back to text messages, but iPad and more importantly, iPod touch users, are stuck. There is a huge teen contingent that uses the iPod touch as a phone with iMessage and apps like Viber for voice.

We’ve reached out to Apple to see if we can get any more information about the problem. Until then, if you’re having issues go ahead and switch to WiFi to see if that helps, and try to send it from an Apple ID, rather than a phone number.

Catch the latest Apple news right now at TNW Apple.