element-hq
Need someone to upload the element-ios app to China App Store
Your use case
Currently, element-ios still could not be found in China App Store, Maybe no one is going to upload this app? or is there something that blocks the actions? Could I upload the app to China App Store by myself?
related: Disable CallKit in China Make the app available on the China App Store again
Have you considered any alternatives?
No response
Additional context
No response
According to this It's likely that China Government doesn't allow any IM that include E2EE :( So there should be no way to make Element available in China. Maybe we can just simply stop limit the app itself and make person who can installed the app live happier.
Please enable Callkit for China users, the APP is just not available in China App Store.
@hrool, I guess we have to realise Apple is never going to be an ally of Matrix users. Even if we somehow get the app into the Store, they’ll have no choice but to remove it again when the regime asks them to.
If the aim of using Matrix is ultimately political freedom and building a democracy, we’d do well to focus on the Android clients (Element & Element X). For the following reasons:
- 75% of the mobile OS’s there are Android.
- Many of those ~20% who choose to stick with iOS have no trouble getting the app from a different App Store they’ve access to (eg from student years abroad).
- apk is decentralised, and can be installed on any Android device. No one can ban people from sending apk to each other. It’s the only future-proof path to mass adoption.
- The Element Android team distributes apk packages that don’t depend on the Play Store to work.
@stefanceriu, rather than spend any further time on a bastardised version of Element iOS, it’d be a much better use of Vector‘s resources to focus on improving the onboarding experience for the Android user, namely solving the 60-second timeout resulting from a blocked matrix.org as reported in #7078 (it misleads newcomers into believing that the whole app got blocked).
The reality is cruel, your wish will not come true, because:
- Apps on the App Store (China region) are strictly censored by the Chinese government, and Element's features are full of confrontation with the government, so it is impossible to pass the review;
- The server (matrix.org) used by Element by default is not in China, and the server is blocked because the content it stores cannot be censored by the Chinese government;
- MIIT stipulates that apps on the App Store (China region) are not allowed to call CallKit related functions. @troilus
Change an account in another region (such as the United States) in App Store to search and download Element, and currently no proxy is required.
It may be added that Yamato-san's second point is exactly where Matrix is superior to a protocol like Signal, especially after https://github.com/element-hq/element-x-ios/pull/3316. It's also the reason why P2P Matrix is such a desideratum.