Apple, the iPhone maker as a response to the recent health crisis as a result has removed all vaping related apps from its App Store.
“[We’ve] updated our App Store Review Guidelines to reflect that apps encouraging or facilitating the use of these products are not permitted,”
As of today, these apps are no longer available to download
Apple says in a statement
42 people have recently died due to lung-related diseases believed to have been caused by vaping products. Although the exact cause of these are still unknown, experts and the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) says it’s due to some chemical used in the vaping products.
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As of now, a total of 181 apps have been taken down by Apple on the App. These apps include all vaping and related apps including those that allowed users to change settings such as lighting and heating on their vaping devices. The company already stopped accepting new Vaping related apps into the App Store back in June when these vaping related health cases first started to appear.
According to Apple, the apps that have already been downloaded will continue to remain functional.
There has always been some form of concerns or issues with these vaping devices. Even before the latest health crisis related to vaping, there were always concerns and dangers that included exploding batteries, seizures and even a high level of vaping amongst teenagers.
The company states in an exclusive with Axios,
We take great care to curate the App Store as a trusted place for customers, particularly youth, to download apps. We’re constantly evaluating apps, and consulting the latest evidence, to determine risks to users’ health and well-being. Recently, experts ranging from the CDC to the American Heart Association have attributed a variety of lung injuries and fatalities to e-cigarette and vaping products, going so far as to call the spread of these devices a public health crisis and a youth epidemic. We agree, and we’ve updated our App Store Review Guidelines to reflect that apps encouraging or facilitating the use of these products are not permitted. As of today, these apps are no longer available to download.
In an exclusive with Axios
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