More Apple iCloud woes: Apple reports Game Center, iTunes, and AppleID outages

Apple iCloud services for identity, Game Center, account creation and sign-in, iTunes store purchases are experiencing service failures this morning for some users, Apple says on its system status page.

iCloud is Apple’s cloud service that stores data like calendar events, mail, bookmarks, photos, and iPhone and iPad backups in Apple’s datacenters, and then syncs it across all your Apple devices. It also includes critical services like Find my iPhone, which helps you locate lost devices, and Back to my Mac, which allows you to access your laptop or desktop for critical information while using a mobile device like an iPad.

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According to Apple’s system status page, the iCloud failures have been occurring this morning from 4:30AM PST to now. But they may go back farther than today — yesterday my events from Calendar, Apple’s built-in scheduling tool, were not syncing with the calendar on my iPhone.

Apparently I’m not the only one.

AppleID failures are critical issues, since if you cannot sign into your Apple identity, it’s difficult to do anything with iCloud, including setting up a new device, or simply signing into your own account. According to 9to5Mac, Apple’s iCloud services have been experiencing major outages every couple of weeks.

The current outages remind me of Apple’s original cloud and syncing service, MobileMe, which was notoriously unfriendly and unreliable … and of how Steve Jobs dealt with the situation in 2008:

Jobs walked in, clad in his trademark black mock turtleneck and blue jeans, clasped his hands together, and asked a simple question: “Can anyone tell me what MobileMe is supposed to do?” Having received a satisfactory answer, he continued, “So why the fuck doesn’t it do that?”

For the next half-hour Jobs berated the group. “You’ve tarnished Apple’s reputation,” he told them. “You should hate each other for having let each other down.” The public humiliation particularly infuriated Jobs. Walt Mossberg, the influential Wall Street Journal gadget columnist, had panned MobileMe. “Mossberg, our friend, is no longer writing good things about us,” Jobs said. On the spot, Jobs named a new executive to run the group.

I’ve asked Apple for a comment on the ongoing situation and will update this post as I learn more.

photo credit: Sean MacEntee via photopin cc