iMessage down: iPhone messages stop working, just hours after major WhatsApp outage

Apple FaceTime service also appears to be affected by outage

(AFP via Getty Images)

iMessage appears to have stopped working for some users, just hours after rival platform WhatsApp was hit by a major outage.

The problems meant users were unable to send or receive messages using the iMessage platform, which comes built into iPhones, iPads and other Apple devices. Text messages should send from within the iMessage app as usual.

The issues also appeared to be affecting Apple’s FaceTime service, which provides video and audio calls, making phones appear to have broken down.

Tracking website Down Detector showed a huge spike in reports of problems with the messaging service, around noon eastern time. But those issues appeared to be geographically specific: a vast number of the people reporting problems appeared to be in the US, for instance.

Down Detector also suggested that users were complaining about their phone networks, with an influx of reports of problems at Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile. But that appeared to be because the texting service had broken, making the phone appear to stop working.

Apple runs its own “System Status” page, intended to track problems with all of its online services. But at the time of publication, the page showed no problems with iMessage or any of its other platforms.

The problems came less than 12 hours after WhatsApp was hit by a major global issue that took its platform offline for around two hours. There is no indication that the two problems were connected.