Apple is reporting problems affecting Apple TV and AppleCare on Device on Tuesday night, while a separate App Store display bug spotted earlier today appears to be considerably more widespread than initially thought.
Apple’s System Status page currently shows two active incidents. Apple TV is experiencing an issue affecting some users, while AppleCare on Device is listed as suffering an outage affecting all users.
According to Apple, the Apple TV issue began at 9:43 p.m. UK time on September 30 and remains ongoing. Apple says the service may be unavailable for some users because of scheduled maintenance.
The second incident began at 10:30 p.m. UK time. Apple says AppleCare purchases made directly on a device are temporarily unavailable, with all users affected.
Both incidents remain listed as ongoing at the time of writing.
However, Apple’s status page currently shows the App Store itself as available, despite a separate display problem that The Apple Post first reported earlier on Tuesday.
The Apple Post initially discovered the App Store displaying internal-looking category and age-rating labels on iPhone, including “MZGenre.News” instead of “News” and malformed age-rating text on individual app pages.
The problem is still present several hours later and now appears to extend considerably further across the App Store than our initial report suggested.
On the Mac App Store, the entire Categories page is currently displaying raw-looking category identifiers instead of their normal names.
Labels visible to The Apple Post include “MZGenre.Apps.DeveloperTools,” “MZGenre.Apps.GraphicsDesign,” “MZGenre.Business,” “MZGenre.Education,” “MZGenre.Entertainment,” “MZGenre.Finance,” “MZGenre.Games,” “MZGenre.Healthcare_Fitness,” “MZGenre.Lifestyle,” “MZGenre.Medical,” “MZGenre.Music,” “MZGenre.News,” “MZGenre.Photography,” “MZGenre.Productivity,” “MZGenre.Reference,” “MZGenre.SocialNetworking,” “MZGenre.Sports,” “MZGenre.Travel,” “MZGenre.Utilities,” and “MZGenre.Weather.”
The widespread appearance of the labels across the Mac App Store strengthens the indication that this isn’t an issue with individual developers’ metadata.
Apple’s own developer documentation explains that App Store and Mac App Store categories are used to organize apps by their primary function or subject matter, with customers normally seeing names such as Entertainment, Shopping, or Social Networking.
Reports from other users also indicate that the unusual strings are appearing across different devices and software versions, including iPhone, iPad, and Mac, suggesting the problem may be server-side rather than tied specifically to a recent iOS update.
Despite that, Apple isn’t currently acknowledging an App Store incident on its consumer System Status page, where the App Store continues to show a green status indicator.
The App Store remains usable, so the absence of an outage notice may reflect the fact that the problem is affecting how storefront information is displayed rather than preventing customers from downloading apps.
Apple hasn’t said what is causing the malformed labels or when they will be corrected.
For now, Apple is officially acknowledging the Apple TV and AppleCare on Device incidents, while the separate App Store presentation issue remains visible across multiple parts of Apple’s storefront.