By Ian Sherr
Some customers were unable to use Apple'sAAPL +0.12% Internet services early Thursday.
Reuters
Apple said Thursday that some Internet services for its mobile devices, such as photo sharing, backup and some messaging, were affected by an outage that lasted nearly 11 hours.
The Cupertino, Calif., company maker said less than 1% of customers were unable to access document streaming, backup and photo services after about 9:30 p.m. Pacific Time Wednesday until service was restored at 8:22 a.m. Thursday morning. Apple also said photos and other items sent through its messaging service may also have been unavailable.
In a shorter interruption that began later, nearly 17% of iTunes users were unable to make purchases for less than an hour Thursday morning.
The issues, which Apple disclosed on its website, come a month after Apple shut down a different service–its developer site–following a hacking attack. Apple at the time said an intruder had attempted to “secure personal information from the website” and “developer’s names, mailing addresses and/or email addresses may have been accessed.”
The shutdown of that Apple site came at an inauspicious time for the iPhone maker, as the site is used as a hub for developers to download pre-release software, learn about new coding techniques and discuss big changes coming this fall. Apple is currently putting the finishing touches on new software for both its mobile devices and computers, expected to be released in the coming months.
Apple has given no indication that the outage reported Thursday, affecting consumer services, is at all related or the result of criminal activity. Outages of this sort, which are not unusual in the industry, are often the result of software bugs or equipment malfunctions.