ByteDance restored TikTok service in the United States on Sunday night, but the app remains unavailable for download on Apple's App Store and Google Play Store. Users who deleted the app during the recent outage cannot reinstall it, while existing users face potential "app rot" issues.

The situation stems from President Biden's signed law banning TikTok, which would impose $5,000 fines per user on Apple and Google if they allow downloads after January 19. This explains the tech giants' reluctance to restore the app despite President Trump's executive order delaying enforcement by 75 days.

Apple has removed several ByteDance-owned apps from its store, including:

• TikTok and TikTok Studio
• TikTok Shop Seller Center
• CapCut
• Lemon8
• Hypic
• Lark applications
• Gauth: AI Study Companion
• Marvel Snap

Senator Tom Cotton, chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, warned that companies facilitating "communist-controlled TikTok" could face "hundreds of billions of dollars of ruinous liability."

While current TikTok users can continue using the app, the inability to update creates several challenges:

• No new features
• No bug fixes
• No security updates
• No performance improvements
• No in-app purchases

The ban's five-year statute of limitations means future presidents could enforce violations of the law, creating long-term uncertainty for both users and platforms.

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