Apple has decided to block Apple News due to the censorship laws in China.
Apple Inc. has discontinued the use of its News App in the Chinese market as reported by New York Times who cited a source that is closely associated with this venture.
The Apple News application that caters to stories and other digital content produced by multiple sources is so far only accessible to the company’s clientele within the United States. Moreover, testing is also being done in other regions like Australia and Britain. Those users who already have the application installed on Apple products can use it whilst traveling. However, the only constraint is that the app cannot be used in China claims New York Times.
As per the report, when any user launches the News app in China, the top banner that usually shows the current news, depicts a message that claims, "Can't refresh right now. News isn't supported in your current region."
This scenario has created a rough situation for Apple since it always portrays itself like a progressive firm whose primary focus is to advocate innovation and human rights. This creates havoc since China is the largest Internet market across the globe that has very strict rules in terms of censorship.
All Internet based companies are liable to comply with strict censorship rules as per their law. Along with that, they also have to come up with the firewall mechanism that tends to lower or, in most cases, block international web based services. Previously, Google also stopped its search engine related services in China once a dispute happened with the local government over censorship.
China is said to be the second largest market for Apple where during the third quarter a record was touched with sales worth $13 billion reports the New York Times. Mr. Xi Jinping who is the President of China, visited the United States last month where the chief executive officer of the iPhone making company, Mr. Tim Cook met the authority.
The reason why Apple might have banned the app in China can be the time that it will have to spend to filter out content. This, instead it chose to completely disable the app within the region. However, some users are not content with the move, who believe that the company is not just restricting Internet access but also stopping users from previewing the articles that are saved already on the devices.
The move is blunt but the censorship laws in China are relatively absurd to comply too.
The sales of iPhone 6 have resulted in the decrease in the demand for iPad, according to the CEO of the Silicon Valley company.
According to recent Apple news, the company reported its earnings for the quarter in which it discussed issues that have long been bothering the firm. The CEO of the firm was seen talking about the decline in the sales of iPad which has become a constant issue that the company has been facing for a couple of quarters now. In the most recent quarterly earnings, Tim Cook told the press that the iPad sales have fallen yet again, witnessing a massive decline, with the revenue coming down by 29% whereas the shipments saw a dip of around 23%. This further fall in the sales has raised concerns of the investors only a little bit keeping in mind the exceptionally great sales that the company has managed to make the iPhone sales.
One reason that was given by Apple’s CEO Tim Cook was that the iPhone making company reduced the units that were normally shipped by around one million units which were why the decline in sales was being witnessed. However, analysts believe that this reason is not good enough because even if the company had not cut down on the shipments, the decline on a year over year basis was still recorded at around 16.7%.
The statement of Cook that caught everyone attention was when he said that the dip in the sales of iPad that was being faced was due to the overpowering sales of Apple iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus as well as the sales of Mac. According to analysts, the fact that Steve Jobs, the previous CEO of Apple, believed in competing with the company and its products is something that is being followed by Tim Cook now as well, as the competition that has been built within the company is the main reason why sales of one significant product of the producers have seen a decline.
Analysts believe that even though the issue of the dip in iPad sales has been brought up every now and then, it is a fact that Apple is not as much concerned about the decrement in the iPad demand as, on the other hand, the extraordinary sales of iPhone have solved many of the problems that the company could have faced.
Furthermore, it was seemingly surprising for analysts to hear that iPhone was not the only product affecting the Apple iPad demand, but the sales of Mac has also increased over the past couple of quarters, hence becoming a reason of hindrance in iPad sales too.
Customers who are using the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus have a rational reason for not going for an iPad update as the phones that they are using are expensive and big in size too, eliminating the need for another gadget of the same kind.
