Apple TV Faces Major Outage, Thousands Left Streaming in the Dark

Apple’s streaming platform, Apple TV, suffered a significant service disruption on Thursday, leaving thousands of users across the United States unable to stream content. According to outage-tracking website Downdetector.com, reports peaked at around 14,907 affected users, marking one of the biggest service interruptions for the platform in recent months.

The issue began surfacing around midday U.S. time, with viewers taking to social media to complain about blank screens, connection failures, and constant buffering. Several subscribers reported being suddenly logged out or unable to access their watchlists.

While the outage appeared to impact users nationwide, data suggested that major cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston saw the highest number of disruptions. Downdetector’s live outage map showed a rapid spike in complaints before the situation gradually began to stabilize later in the day.

Many users expressed frustration online, noting the timing coincided with prime viewing hours for several popular shows and live sporting events available on Apple TV+. Others said their devices briefly resumed service before dropping again, hinting at a rolling technical glitch rather than a complete shutdown.

As of late evening, services were reportedly returning to normal for most users, though some continued to face minor playback issues. Apple’s system status page showed no major alerts at the time, suggesting internal teams were quietly working to restore full functionality.

For now, subscribers are hoping this remains an isolated incident — not a sign of larger system instability as Apple TV continues expanding its global streaming footprint.