While TikTok operates in the United States under new ownership, Apple has deployed technical restrictions to block iOS users in the United States from downloading other apps made by the video platform’s Chinese parent organization ByteDance.
ByteDance owns a vast array of different apps spanning social media, entertainment, artificial intelligence, and other sectors. The leading one is Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, which has over 1 billion monthly active users. While most of those users reside in China, iPhone owners around the world have traditionally been able to download these apps from anywhere without using a VPN, as long as they have a valid App Store account registered in China.
That’s not true anymore. Starting in late January, iPhone users in the US with Chinese App Store accounts began reporting that they were encountering new obstacles when they tried to download apps developed by ByteDance. … has confirmed that even with a valid Chinese App Store account, downloading or updating a ByteDance-owned Chinese app is blocked on Apple devices located in the United States.
Instead, a pop-up window appears that says, “This app is unavailable in the country or region you’re in.” The restriction appears to apply only to ByteDance-owned apps and not those developed by other Chinese companies.
Apple and ByteDance declined to comment. TikTok USDS Joint Venture (the new entity controlling TikTok’s US operations) didn’t respond to …’s request for comment.
The timing and technical specifics suggest the restriction is related to the deal TikTok agreed to in January to divest Chinese ownership of its US operations. The agreement was the result of the so-called TikTok ban law passed by Congress in 2024, which also barred companies like Apple and Google from distributing other apps majority-owned by ByteDance. The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act states that no company can “distribute, maintain, or update” any app majority-controlled by ByteDance “within the land or maritime borders of the United States.”
The law was primarily aimed at TikTok, which has more than 100 million users in the US and had been the subject of years of debate in Washington over whether its Chinese ownership posed a national security risk. But ByteDance also has dozens of other apps that at some point were also removed from Apple’s and Google’s app stores in the US. Now it seems like the scope of impact has reached even more apps that are not technically designed for US audiences, such as Douyin, the AI chatbot Doubao, and the fiction reading platform Fanqie Novel.
New Restrictions
… collected dozens of user reports on Chinese social media from people either living in or traveling to the US who said they had been blocked from downloading or updating popular ByteDance-owned apps. These apps are also not available on the Google Play Store, but it’s less of a concern for Android users as their devices have fewer restrictions on downloading apps from non-Google sources.
“All ByteDance’s apps seem to be a no-go—Douyin included,” Xiao Peng Digital, a YouTuber and tech creator, posted on social media on January 28. He also shared a screen recording of a friend’s phone failing to update Doubao in the US. “Is it related to the TikTok stuff?” he asked.
Until Wednesday, when a user requested a ByteDance app not available in their region, Apple’s pop-up window displayed a “Learn More” button that linked to a webpage on Apple Support. The link was not functioning as of publication, but an archived version of the link showed that it was first published in January 2025 and explained Apple’s decision to remove TikTok and other ByteDance-owned apps from its app store at the time. After … reached out to Apple about the link, the Learn More button was removed from the pop-up notification.
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