Apple 'Concerned' About China's New App Store Rules Banning Unregistered Foreign Apps

[MacRumors]

Apple staff met with Chinese officials in recent months to discuss concerns over new rules that will restrict Apple from offering many foreign apps currently available in its China App Store, according to a new paywalled Wall Street Journal report.

China already blocks the websites of many popular Western social media apps like Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, YouTube, and WhatsApp, but iPhone users in China can still download the apps from Apple's App Store if they use an unauthorized VPN that connects them to an internet server outside the country. China banned VPN services from the App Store in 2017.

The five social media apps named above have been downloaded from Apple's App Store more than 170 million times in China over the last decade, according to estimates by Sensor Tower.

According to the report, Chinese officials told Apple staff that it must strictly implement rules banning unregistered foreign apps, thereby closing a loophole allowing Chinese iPhone users to download them.

Under new rules issued in July by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Apple will no longer be able to offer such apps in its China App Store from next July unless the app operators are registered with the government. The new rules affect both foreign and domestic app distributors, and aren't specifically targeting Apple.

However, the operators are unlikely to register with the Chinese government, since doing so would force them to comply with data transfer and censorship requirements. Such a scenario would leave Apple with no choice but to remove them or face legal sanctions.

Investors are said to be concerned about how the new rules will affect Apple's services bottom line, which includes App Store transactions. Apple is also said to be concerned about issues the company could face in implementing the rules, such as whether users in China who access foreign apps through its overseas app stores would be able to continue to do so.

According to the report, Apple was told during the recent discussions that the new rules are needed to crack down on online scams, pornography, and the circulation of information that violates China's censorship rules.

China has recently banned government officials from using iPhones and other foreign smartphones for work or from bringing such devices to their government offices, and earlier this month the ban was expanded to multiple state agencies and state companies, highlighting China's renewed attempts to block foreign technology.

China is an important market for Apple, with the region accounting for about a fifth of its sales. Most of Apple's manufacturing base remains in the country, despite the company's efforts in recent years to diversify its supply chain to places like Vietnam and India.

Article Link: Apple 'Concerned' About China's New App Store Rules Banning Unregistered Foreign Apps

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

China already blocks the website of many popular Western social media apps like Instagram, X (now Twitter), Facebook [...] and WhatsApp

Sounds perfect!

 

[tomtad]

We all know what China is like so why is Apple surprised exactly?

 

[Skyscraperfan]

Funny, as they do not understand that it is concerning for many people that Apple acts as a gatekeeper when it comes to which apps its users can buy. Apple even forced a German newspaper to make its app nipple free in order to be available on its App Store. That is the worst censorship you can think of.

The closed App Store enables government censorship like the one that is proposed in China. If you could install apps from any source - like soon in the EU - censorship like that would be much harder for governments. So Apple created the infrastructure to make censorship possible.

 

[Wildkraut]

Seems like Apple found a great Partner for their shady practices.

 

[Porco]

a new paywalled Wall Street Journal report.

So many walls everywhere blocking so many things. I’ve heard some paywalls and firewalls can cover so much of the internet they can even block access from space!

 

[unclemax]

Already have to use a VPN for pretty much everything, including typing this comment. I dread the day when the CCP forces Apple to block access to non-Chinese App Stores, and starts blocking iMessages and FaceTime to boot. And with the current climate, it really is a question of when, not if.

 

[Wowfunhappy]

X (now Twitter)

Sorry, did Twitter change their name again, back to Twitter?

 

[MYZ]

Funny, as they do not understand that it is concerning for many people that Apple acts as a gatekeeper when it comes to which apps its users can buy. Apple even forced a German newspaper to make its app nipple free in order to be available on its App Store. That is the worst censorship you can think of.

The closed App Store enables government censorship like the one that is proposed in China. If you could install apps from any source - like soon in the EU - censorship like that would be much harder for governments. So Apple created the infrastructure to make censorship possible.

How would sideloading or even Android help if that Ministry is serious about banning 'unregulated apps'?

They have the authority to demand manufacturers to disable all those functions when crossing the border, such as third party app stores, any sideloaded software on non-rooted devices, etc...

And they can also send a memo to the border agency to test for rooted devices and unapproved manufacturers. It probably won't be airtight but even a 5% random spot checking rate with serious penalties will deter 99.9+% of possible users.

 

[dannyyankou]

We all know what China is like so why is Apple surprised exactly?

This got their attention-

“Investors are said to be concerned about how the new rules will affect Apple's services bottom line, which includes App Store transactions.”

 

[hugodrax]

When you make a deal with the devil for cheap exploitable labor in an authoritarian country eventually you will get hit with the balloon interest payments and lose control of the situation. Now China is the captain.

 

[Hammerd]

Funny, as they do not understand that it is concerning for many people that Apple acts as a gatekeeper when it comes to which apps its users can buy. Apple even forced a German newspaper to make its app nipple free in order to be available on its App Store. That is the worst censorship you can think of.

The closed App Store enables government censorship like the one that is proposed in China. If you could install apps from any source - like soon in the EU - censorship like that would be much harder for governments. So Apple created the infrastructure to make censorship possible.

Can’t agree more.
They will comply with authoritarian gvt when they represent such a big market anyway, so they are glad they can

 

[Hammerd]

Sorry, did Twitter change their name again, back to Twitter?

On a 1 to 10 sarcasm-o-meter scale, that would be an eleven

 

[d686546s]

How would sideloading or even Android help if that Ministry is serious about banning 'unregulated apps'?

They have the authority to demand manufacturers to disable all those functions when crossing the border, such as third party app stores, any sideloaded software on non-rooted devices, etc...

And they can also send a memo to the border agency to test for rooted devices and unapproved manufacturers. It probably won't be airtight but even a 5% random spot checking rate with serious penalties will deter 99.9+% of possible users.

I would assume that a complete ban on third party app stores, or even just removing the ability to install something without an app store, is harder to enforce than just making it Apple's problem.

But of course there's no panacea and the sky's the limit if a repressive government really is dedicated enough.

 

[laptech]

China's way of being able to control anything that has the ability to post negative things about the CCP.

 

[Sciomar]

Something about consequences of their own actions comes to mind...

 

[t0rqx]

Great. To compensate this Apple will probably be charging us extra pennies for turning on- and off our phone. Connecting to iCloud every time. Charging additional cost if we charge our phone because of a deal between them and Mother Nature and removing the heatsink completely in the 16s and replacing the titanium case with FineWoven material + an additional $200 dollar price tick.

 

[Alex Cai]

People like me in China register a US Apple ID
Everything works fine as if I’m outside except that I didn’t figure out how to pay (Thus no subscriptions)

I dread the day when the CCP forces Apple to block access to non-Chinese App Stores, and starts blocking iMessages and FaceTime to boot. And with the current climate, it really is a question of when, not if.

This will go on. MacRumors will be banned and everything else will be banned and all we will have left is Baidu.com junkyard

 

[RedWeasel]

Sorry, did Twitter change their name again, back to Twitter?

You never know with Elon, do you?

 

[indychris]

Sorry, did Twitter change their name again, back to Twitter?

It’s like the artist formerly known as Prince.

Apple is ‘worried’ but we know Tim will acquiesce just as soon as Xi says, “Tim, bend over that rail there so we can show how we do things in China.” He’ll take the paddling and buckle to the chi-coms.

 

[snak-atak]

True it’s ‘concerning’ but nothing new. Apple knew what they were doing when they decided to devote much of its manufacturing and sales in that region. And it’s paid off for them more than 100 fold.

Now they have to find the next fertile ground (or suckers depending on your perspective) which appears to be India. Past reports say that most households in India cannot afford to purchase an iPhone, but that was the case in China a decade or two ago as well. Somehow enough of them saved enough to give it all to Apple for a phone. India will too, eventually.

They have the recipe for success (or dominance), now they just have to repeat, and they will!

 

[McWetty]

I wonder, at what point, will Apple find the “courage” to stand on its principles of privacy and leave China altogether?

It’ll never happen because the draw of money is too great, but if every company stood up and said, “enough” and left, it would change the power dynamic greatly. The only cost is shareholder profits and cheap manufacturing.

 

[nicho]

Already have to use a VPN for pretty much everything, including typing this comment. I dread the day when the CCP forces Apple to block access to non-Chinese App Stores, and starts blocking iMessages and FaceTime to boot. And with the current climate, it really is a question of when, not if.

Weird. I’m typing this just fine without a VPN from within China…

 

[mrochester]

I wonder, at what point, will Apple find the “courage” to stand on its principles of privacy and leave China altogether?

It’ll never happen because the draw of money is too great, but if every company stood up and said, “enough” and left, it would change the power dynamic greatly. The only cost is shareholder profits and cheap manufacturing.

Don’t forget the cost to us consumers too. We’d have to consume less, have less choice, and pay more for what we do buy. But that might be a price some are willing to pay.

 

[nicho]

China already blocks the websites of many popular Western social media apps like Instagram, X (now Twitter), Facebook, YouTube, and WhatsApp, but iPhone users in China can still download the apps from Apple's App Store if they use an unauthorized VPN that connects them to an internet server outside the country. China banned VPN services from the App Store in 2017.

This is factually very much incorrect. They can be downloaded just fine without a VPN from the Chinese App Store.

They cannot be used without a VPN, like the websites, but downloading the app needs no such “unauthorised VPN”.