The premiere of Apple’s highly anticipated series, Pluribus, was met with an unexpected and frustrating disruption. Just as the first two episodes became available to stream Thursday night, the company’s TV service experienced a widespread outage across the United States and Canada.
Reports of the crash began flooding in around 10:30 p.m. Eastern Time, almost immediately after the show launched. Within minutes, Downdetector registered nearly 13,000 user complaints, signaling a significant and immediate problem for viewers eager to watch the new series.
Apple acknowledged the issue, posting a “Resolved Outage” notice detailing the disruption between 10:29 and 11:38 p.m. The outage wasn’t isolated to the TV service; Apple Music and Apple Arcade also became inaccessible during the same period, indicating a broader system-level issue.
The timing of the outage was particularly unfortunate, given the high profile of Pluribus. Created by Vince Gilligan, the mastermind behind “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul,” and starring Rhea Seehorn, the series represents a major investment and a key offering for Apple’s streaming platform.
While the outage was relatively brief, lasting less than an hour, it raised questions about the infrastructure’s capacity to handle the surge in demand. The exact cause remains unclear, but speculation points to Apple’s servers being overwhelmed by the initial wave of viewers.
