Jobs’ Mob has decided to pull everything which can help users circumvent the “Great Firewall of China” from Apple’s Chinese App Store en masse.

On Saturday morning, at least some software makers affected by the sweep received notification from Apple that their tools were removed for violating Chinese law.
Internet censorship in China restricts communications about nasty topics including democracy, Tibetan freedom, and the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.

Most of the aps are for virtual private networks which mask users’ Internet activity and data from outside monitoring.

Two affected companies, ExpressVPN and Star VPN, claim that all major VPN apps for iOS have been pulled.

ExpressVPN reminded Chinese users that they could access App Stores outside of China by listing a foreign billing address, and that their apps for Windows, Android, and – intriguingly – Mac operating systems remained available.

Apple’s official statement said that earlier this year China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced that all developers offering VPNs must obtain a license from the government.

“We have been required to remove some VPN apps in China that do not meet the new regulations. These apps remain available in all other markets where they do business."

Apple has been doing its best to kowtow to Chinese authorities who want to spy on Apple fanboys. It is even building a Chinese data centre that would store user data collected locally. Apple insists that the move came in response to new Chinese cybersecurity rules, though the company insisted the Chinese government has no access to user data.

All this to protect falling Chinese iPhone revenues, which for years were a major source of growth for Apple, have dropped recently thanks to both the rise of cheaper competitors.
One prominent and controversial champion of Internet freedom, the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, quickly responded with outrage to Apple’s move. "Dollars can't wash out be stain," he wrote on Twitter.