In accordance with Wired, Apple is obstructing US customers from downloading or updating a number of ByteDance-owned apps, even once they have a legitimate Chinese language App Retailer account. Listed below are the main points.
Timing coincides with TikTok’s US divestiture
Regardless of being extensively recognized for TikTok (and its Chinese language model, Douyin), ByteDance develops and distributes a number of apps on the App Retailer. That features Capcut, Lemon8, Lark, and Hypic.
Till not too long ago, customers within the US may obtain these apps as they’d some other app within the App Retailer. Nevertheless, in response to Wired, Apple has been blocking downloads of ByteDance-owned apps, even when customers have a legitimate Chinese language App Retailer account.
Primarily based on conversations with dozens of customers who’ve reported this difficulty, Wired says that when making an attempt to obtain the app, customers see a message saying, “This app is unavailable within the nation or area you’re in.”
The timing of this alteration coincides with when the TikTok USDS Joint Enterprise took over and spun out the US model of TikTok, suggesting the transfer could also be associated to the general settlement that compelled ByteDance to divest and hand over the US app.
Wired requested Apple and ByteDance in regards to the difficulty, however each firms declined to remark, as did TikTok USDS Joint Enterprise
Nevertheless, Wired discovered the archived assist web page the place Apple acknowledged that beginning January 19, 2025 (roughly when final 12 months’s TikTok ban briefly went into impact), a listing of 11 ByteDance-owned apps would “now not [be] obtainable in the US, and guests to the US might need restricted entry to options.”
The assist doc, which is presently unavailable, defined that US residents who already had the apps put in on their units would be capable of use them usually, however wouldn’t be capable of re-download them in the event that they had been deleted.
As for customers visiting the US, Apple defined that ByteDance’s apps remained obtainable for obtain “in all different nations and areas the place they’re obtainable,” including that “after leaving the US, [they would] have entry to all performance.
To learn Wired’s full report, observe this hyperlink.
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