On Thursday evening, many iPhone owners (including some here at The edge) saw the “undelivered” flag when trying to send text messages via iMessage. People have reported the issue across multiple carriers (Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile), countries, and even continents.
The Apple Services Status page showed no indication of a problem while the issues were occurring, but it has now been updated after the fact, reflecting a fixed issue where “Users were unable to use this service » for iMessage, Apple Messages for Business, FaceTime and HomeKit. According to the note, the issues persisted from approximately 5:39 p.m. ET until 6:35 p.m. ET.
Apple has not responded to inquiries or commented on the issue; however, judging by our social media usage and reporting, everything appears to be up and running again. However, if your international friends are still telling you, “Just use WhatsApp!” » There’s really nothing we can do about it.
May 16 update: I noticed that the problem appears to be resolved.