Google Maps went offline on Friday due to a mapping services outage

Google Maps is one of those crucial apps that sits on everyone's phone. Even if you're an Apple user, Google Maps is sideloaded as it carries extended features. But Google Maps went offline on Friday due to a mapping services outage. It temporarily helped peak Apple Maps traffic.

One of the go-to apps for driving or travelling is Google Maps. It has the same demand everywhere across the globe. Users started to gather on Downdetector, and hundreds of reports were made.

We saw users reinstalling the Maps apps multiple times in the comment section before realising the service was down. Among many services Google provides, Maps is a solid one. It barely comes to a halt. Hence the users thought it was an issue on their end.

The problem occurred around 0847 am PDT (1347 UTC) when users started to find the service offline. Downdetector and Maps Platform Status Page have crowdfunded projects that track all downtime services. Users get real-time information on online services they use day-to-day. A spokesman from Google said they're "seeing reports of difficulties accessing some Google Maps and Google Maps Platform services."

Google Maps Platform Status Dashboard showed its directions API, Gaming Services, Maps Elevation API, Maps Embed API, SDK for Android, SDK for iOS, Static API, on-demand rides & deliveries solution was down.

Matrix API, geocoding, and geolocation API was working perfectly. But all those mechanisms have to work together for a seamless experience. But multiple services were down, and some were pretty crucial. It's not that huge of a deal as online services do that from time to time.

The last time our headlines were focused on outages was when Amazon Cloud Services (AWS) went through similar matters. AWS is a global customer deepened platform, and it caused losses of millions in services. On the other hand, the Google Maps API is also a critical service today. Many mobile, web and computing applications are built on top of it.

On the other hand, Google Cloud was not affected by the snafu. Servies such as Flightrader24, EMS, Click Before You Dig are depended on the Google Maps API.

On March 18, Flightradar24 Tweeted, "Google Maps is currently experiencing a service outage that may affect users of Flightradar24 on the web and in our Android app." Even though Google was on it to fix the issue, Android, iOS, and other web application tracking services stayed offline for quite some time.

Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA) and GKE validation problems remained with the outage even though the GCP status page remained green for the time. On HPA's recent cluster versions, "customers may experience performance issues with Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA)."

Google Spokesman confirmed the issue had been fixed shortly after 1300 PDT (1900 UTC). He said, "we can confirm that the technical issues from earlier today are now fixed. All impacted Google Maps and Google Maps Platforms are now back up and running globally."

Google Maps services are used in road tracking, traffic monitoring, location-based services, etc. There is no need to explain what Google Maps does as it is considered the default mapping map everywhere around the globe.

The outage started late last Friday and was first reported from the US, Europe, India, Australia, Brazil, and other countries. They have widespread services based on the mapping API of Google Maps.

Frustrated users reported the services, and many rated the applications a lower rating due to its outage. Android phones showed error messages briefly when users tried to load Maps apps.

The app was unable to render the images and geographics. Apple Maps is the biggest competitor of Google Maps. Users leaned towards Apple Maps for some time when Google Mas was down but later went back as the services came back online.