Customers struggle to access Apple services as company hit by outage

Many major Apple services including iMessage and the App Store appear to be offline after thousands reported problems accessing their services.

On Apple's website the tech giant reported the App Store, iTunes, Find My, Podcasts, Radio, Maps, Schoolwork, Arcade and Business Manager were all currently suffering outages.

Some iCloud services were also unavailable

The website Downdetector, which tracks reports of services going offline, said even more Apple services were offline, including the widely used iMessage.

Downdetector had more than 4,000 users reported issues with accessing Apple Music, while nearly 4,000 reported problems with iCloud.

Users online also reported struggling to access Apple's website.

Downdetector first started recording issues with Apple products around 4.20pm.