TikTok Still Isn’t Available from the App Store | Here’s Why

TikTok iPhone App Store Credit: XanderSt / Shutterstock
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The past 72 hours have been a real rollercoaster ride for TikTok fans. After an eleventh-hour appeal to the Supreme Court failed to reverse a looming ban, the service seemed destined to go dark on Sunday — and it did, for all of about 12 hours.

Last week, lawmakers scrambled to find ways to overturn or delay the ban, which was set to take effect on January 19 until the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (PAFACA), a bill that was passed in the spring of 2024 that gave TikTok and its Chinese-owned parent company, ByteDance, nine months to sell the social network to a “non-adversarial” company or risk a complete shutdown.

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As the January 19 deadline approached, Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) announced plans to introduce a new bill, the Extend the TikTok Deadline Act, that could give the company an extra 270 days to divest from its Chinese parent company. It’s unclear where that bill sits now, but it would be the one sure-fire way to grant TikTok an extension since a law passed by Congress can also be repealed or amended by Congress. However, such things take time.

Former President Joe Biden was reportedly also seeking ways to keep TikTok alive, but it seems his hands were tied, and in the end, he gave up and left matters to President Donald Trump, who officially took office yesterday and had already made repeated promises to save the social network in some way.

TikTok went offline late Saturday night, but returned Sunday morning after assurances from the then-incoming President that he would “issue an executive order” immediately after taking office to grant an extension on the ban, adding that “there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order.”

Trump’s word was good enough for Oracle and Akamai, who run TikTok’s US infrastructure, to flip things back on. However, both Apple and Google, which provide the app necessary to communicate with the network, are being considerably more cautious.

President Donald Trump signing executive orders

Even though Trump signed the promised Executive Order yesterday, legal experts are divided on whether the President has the authority to do so. Technically speaking, a Presidential Executive Order cannot overturn a law passed by Congress. President Trump and his advisors know this, which is why the order simply directs the Justice Department not to enforce the law. From the Executive Order:

I hereby order the Attorney General not to take any action on behalf of the United States to enforce the Act for 75 days from the date of this order, to permit my Administration an opportunity to determine the appropriate course of action with respect to TikTok. During this period, the Department of Justice shall take no action to enforce the Act or impose any penalties against any entity for any noncompliance with the Act, including for distributing, maintaining, or updating (or enabling the distribution, maintenance, or updating) of any foreign adversary controlled application as defined in the Act.

Executive Order: Application of Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act to Tiktok

As promised by President Trump, the Executive Order goes on to direct the Department of Justice not to take any action to enforce the Act or impose penalties against anyone who failed to comply before the issuance of the order and also directs the Attorney General to “issue a letter to each provider stating that there has been no violation of the statute and that there is no liability for any conduct that occurred” during the time period covered by the Order.

The problem is that this Executive Order does not overturn PAFACA. It can’t do that. Instead, Trump’s order is simply telling the Justice Department to effectively ignore PAFACA and pretend it doesn’t exist for the next 75 days. Just because companies won’t be prosecuted for breaking the law doesn’t mean that they’re not still breaking the law.

Hence, it’s up to each company’s leadership whether they’re willing to take that risk. Oracle and Akamai are seemingly okay with this, but Apple and Google aren’t willing to lay their entire companies on the line on what could be shaky legal grounds — especially since PAFACA specifies penalties of $5,000 per person who downloads (or presumably updates) TikTok from the respective App Store. With 170 million TikTok users in the US, that could work out to $850 billion in fines. That’s enough to put a serious dent in even a $3 trillion company like Apple.

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Part of the problem is that it’s not even clear if the President’s Executive Order will pass legal muster if challenged. Technically, PAFACA has a provision for the President to extend the deadline by 90 days if there’s a viable deal on the table, but as things presently stand, no such deal exists. Further, Trump isn’t citing that potential loophole as the rationale behind the Executive Order, which may be why he chose to grant a 75-day extension rather than the full 90 days that would have been permitted by the Act.

Instead, President Trump cites his “unique constitutional responsibility for the national security of the United States, the conduct of foreign policy, and other vital executive functions” as the basis for his authority, and claims that the timing of the Act “interferes with my ability to assess the national security and foreign policy implications of the Act’s prohibitions before they take effect,” as well as to negotiate a resolution that would meet the national security concerns outlined by PAFACA.

While some believed that Apple and Google might restore TikTok following the formal issuance of the Executive Order, none of ByteDance’s apps have come back to either the App Store or the Play Store as of this writing. It seems that both companies are sticking to the actual law, as written, since putting TikTok back on their respective app marketplaces is still illegal, even if the President has guaranteed that they won’t get in trouble for it.

What This Means for iPhone TikTok Users

person holding iPhone with TikTok logo

To be fair, it’s a lower-stakes game for both Apple and Google. The lack of TikTok on the App Store and Play Store won’t affect anyone who already has it on their devices. Apple does have a “kill switch” available to disable apps already installed on an iPhone or iPad, but there’s no reliable information that the company has ever used it, at least not on any well-known apps, and it’s believed to exist only for extreme scenarios where user privacy or security are threatened.

The vast majority of TikTok fans already have the app on their devices, and since TikTok is up and running in the US, it’s going to be business as usual for now. In a support document, Apple explains that TikTok and other ByteDance apps “can’t be redownloaded if deleted or restored if you move to a new device” and that it will no longer be possible to make in-app purchases or subscriptions nor receive updates as long as the ban remains in effect.

That last part isn’t a serious issue yet, but as Apple notes, it “could potentially impact performance, security, and compatibility with future versions of iOS and iPadOS.” The company also adds that although ByteDance’s apps are still available on the App Store in other countries, users visiting from outside the United States still won’t be able to “download, update, or make in-app purchases and new subscriptions inside ByteDance Ltd. apps while within the land or maritime borders of the United States,” although any TikTok user can cancel an in-app subscription in the usual manner by going to the Subscriptions section under their Apple Account in the Settings app.

Apple has clearly drawn a line in the sand here, as it states in the same support document that it’s “obligated to follow the laws in the jurisdictions where it operates,” so don’t expect TikTok to return to the App Store until TikTok meets the legal requirements to continue operating in the United States. That means either seeing it sold to a company amenable to US regulators, or a bill passing that would repeal or amend the ban, such as Senator Markey’s attempt to extend the deadline by 270 days.



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