Panic over — Snapchat for iPhone is working but you need to download an update

News
By Oliver Haslam
published

Apple iPhone with Snapchat
Apple iPhone with Snapchat (Image credit: iMore)

What you need to know

  • Snapchat suffered from a long outage yesterday, seemingly caused by a faulty app update.
  • A new update has been made available via the App Store that restores service.

Yesterday was a tough day for iPhone owners who enjoy their Snapchat time. Users found that Snapchat wouldn't work after downloading the most recent update from the App Store. There was no workaround and no fix in sight. But panic not, because Snapchat's back!

Snapchat announced that the problem was fixed in a tweet but you're going to need to download another new update to get everything back up and running. Snapchat promises this one will work, though!

See more

Snapchat wasn't particularly forthcoming in the release notes, but a simple "Bug fixes" will have to suffice.

The previous update, version 11.34.0.35, caused the app to crash on launch which obviously put a dampener on proceedings for people keen to share photos of their outfits and lunch — or whatever it is people do with Snapchat these days. It isn't clear exactly what went wrong with the previous update or why it wasn't caught by Snapchat's own testing and beta process, but it isn't the first time an app update has broken things completely and it won't be the last, either.

Perhaps this is a lesson for smaller developers who think big teams don't have issues like this — even the best iPhone apps and development teams can have things go awry when you least expect it!

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too.

Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.