Wednesday, 30 July 2025
Tea stays #3 general within the US iPhone App Retailer. Right here’s a screenshot of the highest free iPhone apps at this time, and an inventory of the present prime 10, utilizing the complete names the apps select to show:
- ChatGPT
- Wingstop
- Tea Courting Recommendation
- Threads
- Google Maps
- WhatsApp Messenger
- ParentSquare
- CapCut – Video Editor
- TikTok – Movies, Store & LIVE
I is likely to be forgetting or unaware of earlier related conditions, however I can’t recall something like this earlier than, the place an app riddled with outrageous safety/privateness vulnerabilities stays virally widespread. A Hacker Information thread from earlier at this time debates why the app is even nonetheless accessible on the App Retailer.
So is it Apple’s place to yank the app? It feels flawed to me that Apple ought to utterly take away Tea from the App Retailer, but it surely’s additionally true that considered one of Apple’s elementary pitches for the App Retailer — and the App Retailer’s exclusivity for app distribution in many of the world — is that iOS customers can belief any and all apps within the App Retailer as a result of they’re vetted by Apple. However right here’s Tea, sitting at #3, offering a service that many lady need, and your complete factor is shockingly untrustworthy. (I absolutely anticipate extra vulnerabilities to be discovered and exploited.)
Tea, unsurprisingly, has nearly nothing on their web site concerning the safety violations their customers have suffered, nor any point out of their App Retailer itemizing. Their solely public acknowledgement of the fiasco is a collection of three Instagram posts on July 26, 27, and 29 (the latest of which acknowledges that they’ve utterly disabled the DM function “briefly”), and this FAQ on their web site, that, so far as I can inform, is barely discoverable by the “hyperlinks in bio” on their Instagram profile. Their FAQ solely addresses the preliminary discovery from final week, not the extra important one which 404 Media publicized Monday that included the publicity of DMs.
Additionally fascinating to me is that Tea, although accessible on each iOS and Android, is seemingly not widespread in any respect on Android. It’s not even listed within the Play Retailer’s prime free apps. (The Play Retailer web site lists solely the highest 45, however I scrolled by your complete prime 200 on my Pixel.) The present Play Retailer prime 10:
- ChatGPT
- TikTok – Movies, Store & LIVE
- Threads
- WhatsApp Messenger
- Temu: Store Like a Billionaire
- TikTok Lite – Sooner TikTok
- DramaBox – Stream Drama Shorts
- Money App
- Snapchat
Extra tellingly, Tea doesn’t even crack the Play Retailer prime 200 listing for the “Courting” class. (On iOS, it’s within the “Life-style” class, however on the Play Retailer it’s within the “Courting” and “Informal” classes. Maybe Apple requires apps within the “Courting” class to be full-fledged relationship app providers, not dating-app-adjacent like Tea.)
I’m undecided what explains the disparity in Tea’s recognition by platform. One assumption is that relationship is extra of an adolescent’s recreation, and younger individuals skew barely extra towards iPhone than the US inhabitants general. However from what I can inform, that skew is barely about 10 p.c. Additionally, surveys recommend girls usually tend to be iPhone customers. However I can’t imagine that age or gender demographics alone clarify why Tea is #3 within the App Retailer however doesn’t even crack the highest 200 on Android.
I strongly suspect that whereas Google hasn’t eliminated Tea from the Play Retailer, that they’ve delisted it from discovery apart from by trying to find it by title or following a direct hyperlink to its itemizing. That each jibes with what I’m seeing on the Play Retailer prime lists, and strikes me as a considerate stability between the obligations of an app retailer supplier. As egregious as Tea’s safety exploits have been, eradicating the app totally doesn’t appear referred to as for. However delisting it from recognition lists looks like a measured solution to discourage new customers from making an attempt it until they’re particularly on the lookout for it. If that is what Google is doing, Apple ought to comply with their lead. (I’ve put in a query to Google’s PR inquiring about this; if/once I get a solution, I’ll replace this text.)
