[Huayra]

Following a discussion thread on Apple’s support forum from users reporting that all of their iCloud content had disappeared, it seems iMessage is now failing to activate on iOS devices and Macs.

The iCloud outage has been acknowledged by Apple, who address the issue on its System Status page, but stop short of offering an explanation as to why it has occurred.

9to5Mac reports:

“One commenter, npascual, said an Apple support representative ‘acknowledged last night’s outage,’and then suggested the user ‘turn off all iCloud-related services on my iPad (Mail, Contacts, Calendars, etc.), wait a bit then turn them back on.’ The representative apparently indicated ‘everything would return after a short period of re-synching.’ However, npascual noted it had been a few hours since the call without any repair.”

Shortly after iCloud’s problems started, reports began to surface that Apple’s iMessage service was failing to activate on iOS and Mac devices. Although it seems the service is not completely down, with some users claiming they can still send and receive messages using their email address as the caller ID, complaints of Macs and iPhones returning errors or stalling on login continue to mount.

Apple users experienced a similar iMessage outage in the previous week, with more than 100 comments on Twitter reporting the glitch.

Many users are now speculating as to whether Apple is planning to roll out a unified phone number and email address system that will enable iMessages sent to an iPhone number to also be received on a Mac or other iOS device. 9to5Mac reports this is unlikely, given that the feature will be released with iOS 6 – expected to launch in spring.

What do you think – do the recent problems with iCloud and iMessage point to Apple implementing a new system, or, is it just a technical glitch? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

(yes, it was copypasted)