Senior Vice President of tech giant Apple says that a Chinese version of its news app will be made available soon, after earlier reports revealed that it has been censored in China.
“We’re working on a version for China that hopefully we will be able to introduce soon. We’ve got a great Chinese customer base and we want to deliver as great of an experience in China as we do here in the US,” Eddy Cue told CNN.
Cue also denied that the company was facing “censorship hurdles in China,” and said that they were aware of how to operate in China.
“We’ve got app stores. We have got our retail stores there. We launched Apple Music in China. We have a great working relationship in China… We follow the laws of the countries that we are in and we’ll work with the local news organisations and the international news organisations that are available in China. We have been very successful at that.”
In October, tech entrepreneur Larry Salibra revealed that the news app has been deliberately blocked by China. According to Salibra, the Apple News App would “refuse to refresh or open any of the articles already displayed on the screen, showing the message ‘News isn’t supported in your current region’.” It also did not work even when a VPN service, which facilitates uncensored roaming internet, was activated. Normally, users in countries where the app has been made available can see content even when abroad, so long as they had downloaded it and pre-registered in their home region.
The New York Times said that Apple would have to put a censorship system in place in order to obtain a nod of approval from Beijing, which puts the burden of the filtering content on companies.
The company’s Apple Pay app is also set to launch in China by February 2016, after they reached a deal with four major Chinese banks, Quartz reported in November. The app will allow users to make retail purchases on their Apple Watch and newer models of iPhones after linking it up with a debit, credit or store card.
