According to WIRED reports on March 6, Apple has begun to implement new technical restrictions in the United States to prevent iPhone users from downloading some Chinese applications developed by ByteDance, even if the user uses a Chinese App Store account. Multiple users have reported since the end of January this year that when trying to download or update Bytedance applications in the United States, the system will prompt: "This application is not available in your country or region." WIRED's testing shows that this restriction does exist.
Previously, as long as global users had a Chinese Apple ID, they could download applications for the Chinese market in any region, such as Douyin, Doubao, and the novel platform Tomato Novel. But the latest restrictions mean that even if the account is from China, devices used in the United States may still be blocked from downloading these apps.
The timing of this change is believed to be related to the U.S. government’s regulatory policy on Bytedance applications. In 2024, the U.S. Congress passed the "Protecting Americans from Applications Controlled by Foreign Adversaries Act" to restrict app stores from distributing applications controlled by ByteDance in the United States.
While the bill primarily targets TikTok, ByteDance also owns dozens of apps around the world. These apps have previously been removed from the U.S. App Store, and now the restrictions appear to have been further extended to products originally intended for the Chinese market.
Currently, TikTok, CapCut and Lemon8 are still available for download on the US App Store. The apps were included in a restructuring agreement for TikTok's U.S. operations reached in January this year, involving investors including Oracle.
Analysts believe that this restriction also reflects Apple’s strengthening of the App Store’s geo-recognition capabilities in recent years. In addition to the Apple ID registration location, iPhone devices may also determine the user's country through GPS location, Wi-Fi country code, and SIM card information.
Scholars who study EU regulatory policies point out that this type of technology was first used to enforce regional restrictions under the EU’s Digital Market Law, and may now be used to enforce U.S. policies against ByteDance applications.
Some users said that it is still possible to bypass restrictions through certain technical operations, but the effect is not stable. Observers believe that if Apple continues to strengthen device-level geo-blocking, it may become more difficult to download apps across regions in the future.