Apple has decided to simply suspend the sale of all its products on Russian soil, in response to the invasion of Ukraine by Putin’s army.
This week, Apple made an important decision. Indeed, the Apple brand, third largest seller of smartphones in Russia behind Xiaomi and Samsung announced the suspension of sales of its products throughout the Russian territory, depriving the population of iPhones, Mac, iPad and other Apple Watch. For several days, resellers of Apple products could not place new orders, according to independent Russian media. Apple Pay is also blocked as well. The decision of the famous multinational company comes in the context of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
The App Store not yet cut
Similarly, the applications RT and Sputnik , were removed from the App Store in Europe. ” We are deeply concerned about the Russian invasion of Ukraine and support all those who are suffering because of the violence,” the U.S. firm explained in a statement. The company also announced its support for humanitarian efforts and assistance with the unfolding refugee crisis. ” We are doing everything we can to support our teams in the region,” she added. However, the company has still not disabled the App Store in the country.
In addition, the Ukrainian government has made several appeals to Apple and its famous CEO, Tim Cook. The latter is demanding an outright suspension of the application store in Russia. ” I urge you (…) to stop providing Apple services and products to the Russian Federation, including blocking access to the Store,” wrote the Ukrainian Digital Minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, a few days ago.
Finally, Apple also said it has disabled the feature to report live incidents on Apple Maps. The company made this choice as a security measure to protect the Ukrainian population. The idea here is to avoid that users do not deliver valuable information that could help the Russian camp to establish its positions.
More and more measures from the tech sector
But Apple isn’t the only company taking such steps. In fact, in recent weeks, such decisions are increasingly pronounced against Russia. Thus, the new technology sector is following the lead of Western governments, which have already introduced economic sanctions against the country.
Already, at the beginning of this week, Cedric O, the Secretary of State for Digital Transition and Electronic Communications in France, called on all major digital services around the world to block or suspend the RT and Sputnik channels and pages from their services. These two Russian media are indeed accused of spreading Moscow’s propaganda. In addition, TikTok, Meta (Facebook, Instagram) and YouTube, and even Telegram have locally blocked the accounts of these two media outlets on European territory, while Google has removed their applications from their online store.
