I've never had the issues you're referring to, including last Thursday. However, if you're using Android, they recently rolled out an update on the Samsung Verizon phones. I wonder if the AA app was not upgraded yet, but your phone was upgraded and that caused a problem.
At the same time though, I think AA's app is embarrassing as well (in the features it offers). E.g. making you load up the website on the phone to change seats before checking in is an hilarious problem. But in terms of the features it does offer, I have not noticed problems.