Wait apple is still operating in Russia? Weren’t we sanctioning them or something?
TL;DR: they stopped selling hardware in Russia, but people still find a way to import it.
It also looks like they are still maintaining Russia’s region in the AppStore.
I can understand smuggled hardware, but it’s not like Russians can buy their localized App Store in India… it would be much more helpful if they weren’t running it there, as the smuggled iPhones would be just bricks
Thing is, if they kill the App Store entirely, they also fuck over Russians that already have iPhones and are fleeing the country, and or dissenting the government.
Looks like they’re trying to leave as much of the App Store as available as possible. That said, at some point the government censorship will become so bad that they might need to pull the plug entirely.
And that said, if they allowed proper side loading, this wouldn’t be an issue. They could just peace out entirely.
We are but not like that lol
Eitherway sanctions is just increased cost of doing business, ie they don’t stop good business.
I’m not an Apple person but IIRC their appstore is functional for already purchased and free apps. New purchases, as well as import of devices, are done via various grey schemes like via currencies and borders of third countries. I can’t recall news about someone getting individually banned for that, but some opportunistic foreign banks closed their doors to rubles fearing sanctions. Official stores are closed, but I guess their repair\replace services are still operated but without a connection to the Apple themselves. There were also services to install non-Appstore banking clients and government’s services via some loopholes. At the same time, except for the app in the OP, some apps can choose not to be availiable in a select country on their own.
I guess Apple did the formal exit and then stopped to care. It’s not operating in Russia per se, but it operates in other countries with entities barely passing as legal consumers and resellers. They still get their profits as usual, and these interlayer smugglers make big bucks enough to be advertised in every second russian youtube video. Is there then a mechanism to make Apple filter them out?
A bit related news piece: russian gamers cried over Sony limiting Helldivers 2 to select countries, while other russian gamers dunked on them for they have PSN linked to the right country.
Classic stuff, Apple. While I can wrap my head around them sucking off China since that is where all their child labor factories are, playing ball with Russia shows who they are. Glad I switched to an open source OS for my phone.
shows who they are.
A corporation. And when corporations have to make a choice, profit will always come first.
Yeah but sometimes it also feels like they wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire either tho lol just because
There’s no child labour factories in China, this is just racism. The child labour is in the USA.
How about not having different app stores for every region?
The real answer is to let people load apps from outside of the App Store.
If you’re going to run an AppStore, you’re going to be subject to the laws of every country, and you’ll have to segment it by region.
So all the shit banned in China, North Korea, etc. we lose it too then? You fucking moron
I see from your post history, it’s full of great comments. Not sure why your reaction here was so harsh. I hope your day is going okay.
Perhaps I wasn’t clear. I meant have one app store and ignore those governments who want to ban apps.
Also, being able to directly load apps on your devices is way better anyway.
Is that a seal of approval?
Who the fuck is affording iphones in Russia