Apple is reportedly removing all vaping-related apps from the App Store. The move comes on the heels of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reporting 2,172 lung injury cases linked to e-cigarette or vape products.
Axios reports Apple told it that the company agrees with experts that vaping is a “public health crisis”:
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.
Apple had already taken steps to prevent vaping apps from being added to the App Store, and in June it App Store Review Guidelines to indicate that apps encouraging consumption of vape products are not permitted on the App Store.
If you already have a vaping-related app installed on your iOS device, it will continue to function.
(Photo by Rubén Bagüés on Unsplash)