Breaking news from Mark Gurman at Bloomberg: Trump’s attorney general Pam Bondi has reportedly penned a letter to Apple that grants the company permission to restore TikTok in the App Store.
The current status of TikTok on the iPhone is complicated. iPhones with TikTok already installed can continue to use the app. TikTok is also available through the web.
But TikTok cannot issue app updates through the App Store. The app also can’t be re-downloaded if it’s deleted. And most importantly, for Apple’s next low-end iPhone launch planned for next week, TikTok can’t be transferred from one iPhone to another. The app is not restored from an iCloud backup, for example.
Gurman adds that Apple confirmed the app will return “Thursday evening.”
Apple and Google were legally required to delist TikTok from the App Store after China’s ByteDance failed to divest ownership.
Despite the bill passing in Congress and being signed by former President Biden, the Biden administration opted to hold off on enforcement and let the incoming Trump administration decide how to proceed.
President Trump signaled support for TikTok remaining available after initially pushing for the app to be banned during his first term in office. Trump’s support for delaying the ban came in the form of a 75 day extension for ByteDance to work out a deal with American firms and possibly even the US government.
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