Phones are going for thousands of dollars on online storefronts after Apple and Google took down ByteDance platforms.

Phones with TikTok already downloaded are being listed for eye-watering sums as the social media platform remains absent from app stores.

Some of TikTok's 170 million U.S.-based users are selling phones with the social media app preloaded on them for thousands of dollars online.

People are listing phones preloaded with TikTok for tens of thousands of dollars on eBay, Facebook marketplace and other online storefronts.

This has two knock-on effects that are much longer term. First, we now know that a U.S. TikTok ban will be difficult to bypass if it comes back — and the same will be true for any other Chinese (or other) app banned in the same way. There are some options, as I reported over the weekend, but none of them are especially compelling.

Some fast-acting entrepreneurs are selling phones with TikTok preloaded on devices for thousands of dollars online, after the social media app was momentarily unavailable in the U.S.

DeepSeek surged to the top of Apple's App Store over the weekend, surpassing OpenAI's ChatGPT with lightning-fast, highly logical responses. Some users claim its natural language processing, writing quality and reasoning surpass US counterparts including OpenAI, Meta and Google.

The TikTok app is still not available in Google Play or Apple's App Store despite Trump's order halting the ban. Here's what's happening.

Social media app TikTok briefly went dark in the U.S. last weekend due to a federal government tussle over its ownership. It’s since come back online, though the app itself cannot be downloaded from Google or Apple app stores.

As first spotted by Wired, there are currently about 9,000 eBay item listings for various smartphones that already have TikTok installed. There’s a wide array of devices depending on the preferred make,

The Apple Intelligence notification summaries on iOS 18.3 are temporarily disabled for news apps, appear italicized and can be disabled on a per-app basis from your lock screen.