Popular apps such as dating service Tinder, music-streaming app Spotify and video platform TikTok were among those rendered unusable.

The problem affected apps that had integrated the "login with Facebook" feature, which eliminates the need for a separate username and password.

Facebook said it had "identified the issue quickly and resolved it".

It had updated the software development kit (SDK) used by app developers to integrate its services, on Wednesday.

But independent developers were soon warning, on coding site Github, it was crashing their apps.

And on Thursday, Facebook said: "Yesterday, a new release... included a change that triggered crashes for some users in some apps using the Facebook iOS SDK.

"We apologise for any inconvenience."