Apple Music Outages Have Disabled Several Services, What's the Current Status?

Liputan6.com, Jakarta - The popular music streaming service, Apple Music, experienced a significant service outage on January 20, 2026. This incident not only impacted the music listening experience for millions of users, but also affect several other critical services within the Apple ecosystem, causing concern among global users.

The outage encompassed a range of technical issues, from connectivity difficulties and playback lag to library loading issues and syncing errors. Thousands of reports flooded the Downdetector platform, demonstrating the scale of the outage and its impact on Apple users' daily operations.

Although Apple stated on its System Status page that all services were operating normally on January 21, 2026.

The Apple Music service outage reportedly began on January 20, 2026. User reports on Downdetector peaked around 8:00 PM ET (Eastern Time) that day. According to a report by The Times of India, the issue is estimated to have begun around 4:15 AM IST, which equates to 5:15 PM EST, indicating that the outage had been ongoing for several hours before peaking in the United States.

A number of other Apple services were also affected by the incident. These included the App Store, Apple TV, iTunes Store, Maps Traffic, iCloud Mail, iMessage, and iWork for iCloud. Several developer-specific services, such as Apple Podcasts Connect, App Store – Advanced Commerce API, App Store – In-App Purchases, App Store – Receipt Verification, App Store – Sandbox, Developer ID Notary Service, App Store Connect, Apple Music for Artists, and Xcode Cloud, also experienced operational issues.

Users reported a variety of issues disrupting their experience.

Many had difficulty accessing services, experiencing lag when playing music, or having trouble loading their music libraries. Sync errors were also a common complaint, where changes or additions to songs wouldn't integrate properly across devices. Some users were even unable to make purchases or access the app store.

Outage reports were concentrated in major US cities, including New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Chicago, and Seattle. 

Apple quickly acknowledged the service disruption via its official System Status page. Initially, the acknowledgement focused on issues affecting the App Store and iTunes Store, as well as intermittent issues experienced by Apple TV. This acknowledgment came after more than 1,000 outage reports flooded Downdetector after 8:00 PM ET, representing a significant spike from the normal number of reports.

At one point, more than 2,000 users had reported issues with Apple's platforms overall, underscoring the widespread impact of the incident. Pressure from users and the media prompted Apple to promptly investigate and address the root cause of the outage.

On January 21, 2026, Apple issued an official statement confirming that all systems were operating normally and all customer outages had been resolved. Apple's official System Status page was also updated to indicate that Apple Music was available and running smoothly for most users.

Despite the official statement, user reports on platforms like Downdetector still showed sporadic complaints regarding connectivity, playback lag, and syncing issues in the past 24 hours, although none indicated a widespread global outage as previously reported.

Despite the initial outages, Apple Music actually ended 2025 on a high note. The company reported that active listeners and new subscribers reached record highs, coinciding with the music streaming service's 10th anniversary celebration.

To continue to delight its users, Apple has released a number of innovative new features for Apple Music. The AutoMix feature is a key feature, allowing users to activate seamless, DJ-like song transitions when switching between songs or when the music ends. Furthermore, the Lyrics Translation & Pronunciation feature is also attractive to users who want to enjoy music across languages, making it easier for them to understand and pronounce foreign song lyrics.

Apple Music Sing, with its interactive karaoke experience from iPhone to TV, is also growing in popularity among users. As in previous years, Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You" was once again the most-sung song by users during the holiday season, from November 1st through the end of the year.

Additionally, the overall Apple ecosystem continues to grow. Apple Pay, now available in 89 countries and regions, is supported by more than 1,000 banks and payment networks.

The service successfully prevented over $1 billion in fraud and drove global sales growth of over $100 billion last year.

With iOS 26, Apple Pay offers installment options directly from banks and lenders, while Apple Intelligence in Apple Wallet tracks automated orders directly from users' emails.