Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Mobile
  3. News

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Apple’s App Store got out of the wrong side of bed this morning

By

ipad ios app store
bloomua/123rf
Hoping to download Spotify to your iPhone? Is Angry Birds good enough? Apple’s App Store was down for around six hours this morning with an interesting problem — searching for an app returned completely unrelated results.

Apple Offer: Trade up to a new iPhone for as low as $10 a month

Recommended Videos

The issue has been confirmed by Apple’s System Status website, which mentions that there was an issue in which “all users were affected.” The issue has since been resolved, and everything seems to be up and running now.

Related

It’s important to mention that not all searches were affected — for example, while it seems as though searching for Spotify returned unrelated results, searching for Facebook and Twitter did not seem to do so. Still, it was enough to send Twitter into an outrage.

Just when I need updates, @AppStore is down :( #itunesdown #appstoredown @AppleOfficial

— pwiksell (@pwiksell) November 18, 2015

The App Store is failing in several countries. Search functionality gone down the tubes in UK. C'mon @AppStore get it fixed.

— Gareth Morgan (@Gareth_D_Morgan) May 5, 2016

In addition to the issues with the App Store search results, users found that App Store links also weren’t working — when a user clicked on a link to an app, it would instead lead to a page with an error message.

The whole debacle is unusual for Apple — sure, the company has had issues with the App Store in the past, but to have such widespread problems that affect so many people isn’t something that often happens for the firm. And while this issue probably isn’t that important, especially considering the fact that it has been resolved, problems like this certainly aren’t good for customer satisfaction or the firm’s image.

Developers have separately expressed dissatisfaction with the App Store in the past, saying that its design makes it too hard for customers to find their desired apps. Not only that, but it seems as though Apple lets developers pay for top spots in search results, meaning that developers who have more money can pay to get seen by more people, and that small developers can rarely find a large customer base.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Christian de Looper
Christian de Looper
Contributor
Christian’s interest in technology began as a child in Australia, when he stumbled upon a computer at a garage sale that he…
Apple’s latest store opening is one of its most significant in years
Apple opens its first retail store in India.

Previous

Next

Read more
Apple sued by Baidu over fake Ernie chatbot apps on App Store
apple sued by baidu over fake ernie ai apps on app store office

Chinese tech giant Baidu has sued Apple and a number of app developers over fake versions of its AI chatbot that have appeared in the App Store.

Baidu unveiled its own version of OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard chatbots in March, but unlike its competitors, Ernie, as it’s called, is not yet widely available for public use. Instead, anyone interested in taking Ernie for a spin has to apply to Baidu for a special code and then wait to see if they get selected.

Read more
No, you can’t use an Apple gift card on Apple Pay
Photo of Apple gift cards.

A viral TikTok has made the internet rounds, showing a person who thought that they could transfer Apple gift card funds to Apple Pay. After buying a $300 Apple gift card, however, they quickly learned that that's simply not possible. While their choice might seem misguided in hindsight, there are plenty of people who have been left confused about the differences between Apple gift cards and Apple Pay.

While having a $300 Apple gift card certainly has its uses — such as buying 10 years of Apple Music, as the original poster jokingly pointed out — it's certainly not the same as having that same money to spend freely with Apple Pay. To avoid making the same mistake as this TikTok user, make sure that you understand the distinctions between the two Apple services, as it might just save you $300 (or more).
You cannot add Apple gift cards to Apple Pay

Read more