Is Hear My Baby Heartbeat App censored by Apple?

Why it is unavailable

Five things can put an app out of one App Store. Each is weighed below against what can be seen from outside — open a card for the reasoning.

• A government or a court demanded itLikely

  and Apple complied. Apple publishes a count of these per country each year and never says which apps they were. Apple's 2025 App Store Transparency Report

  • 18% of Medical apps are unavailable in Australia — 21 of 116 — against 10% of everything we test there.
  • 2 other apps left mainland China the same day, Jul 30, 2019.
  • Apple reports 196 government-ordered removals in mainland China for 2025, naming none of them.
  • Missing from 2 of 175 storefronts, available in 171.
• A local rule about paying for itLikely

  gambling licences, financial rules, tax — the kind of law that governs a transaction. Apple can obey every one of them by refusing the payment, which is why this is the only restriction we would accept and the only one that cannot touch a free app.

  • It is paid in some storefronts, so a rule about selling it could apply there.
  • 18% of Medical apps are unavailable in Australia — 21 of 116 — against 10% of everything we test there.
  • 2 other apps left mainland China the same day, Jul 30, 2019.
  • Missing from 2 of 175 storefronts, available in 171.
• Apple applied a rule, unaskedLikely

  either its own review guidelines, or its own reading of a local law, with nobody having demanded anything. This is the largest category in Apple's own removal figures by a wide margin, and it covers distribution permits as well as content — Apple kept a free Bible app out of mainland China in 2021 for want of one. Apple's 2025 App Store Transparency Report

  • 18% of Medical apps are unavailable in Australia — 21 of 116 — against 10% of everything we test there.
  • 2 other apps left mainland China the same day, Jul 30, 2019.
  • Missing from 2 of 175 storefronts, available in 171.
• The developer withheld itUnlikely

  freely, or under legal advice of their own, or because Apple's guidelines require that kind of app to be limited to certain countries. Switching a country off is easy for a developer to do in Apple's own tools: it needs no new version of the app, and it leaves no public trace other than the app being unavailable.

  • 18% of Medical apps are unavailable in Australia — 21 of 116 — against 10% of everything we test there.
  • 2 other apps left mainland China the same day, Jul 30, 2019.
  • Missing from 2 of 175 storefronts, available in 171.
• Something brokeUnlikely

  a rejected update, a lapsed certificate, a payment or licensing problem, a mistake nobody has got round to noticing.

  • 18% of Medical apps are unavailable in Australia — 21 of 116 — against 10% of everything we test there.
  • 2 other apps left mainland China the same day, Jul 30, 2019.
  • Gone for 7 years.

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