Apple iCloud services face outage; Find My Friends, Photos, Mail Drop down too

Since a few hours now, many iCloud services and apps have been experiencing issues. While this problem is not being faced by all Apple users, many have reported problems accessing iCloud-based apps and services like Notes and Find My Friends. At the same time, some users are complaining that these apps and service are working “slower than normal” for them.The issue seems to be going on since 9.30 pm on 24 October, and at the time of writing the story, the issues seem to be persisting.[caption id="attachment_5317851" align="alignnone" width="1024"] A customer looks at Apple's new iPhone XS after it went on sale at the Apple Store in Tokyo. Image: Reuters[/caption]Even on Apple’s System Status page, the company notes that iCloud is suffering a widespread service disruption of some sort.[caption id="attachment_5436091" align="alignnone" width="1280"] iCloud System Status page. Source: Apple[/caption]The outage seems to have affected some key Apple software services, such as the iCloud Backup, iCloud Drive, iCloud Accounts and Sign, and a number of productivity apps that sync using Apple’s cloud platform, including the Mail Drop, iCloud Calendars, iCloud Contacts, iCloud Notes, among others.And beyond Find My iPhone, Find My Friends and Backup, there are quite a few serious software tools that rely on the iCloud infrastructure, like iCloud Keychain for secure login and general account sign in for iOS devices and Macs, that are seeing problems as well.Apple is yet to officially give out a statement on the issue. The company hasn’t really acknowledged the issue yet as well, but the System Status page makes it clear that they are aware of the issue.If you are also wondering what’s causing this problem, we will update this space as soon as we find out the issue.