TikTok needs Android customers to sideload its app | TechCrunch

With TikTok’s destiny within the U.S. unsure — its ban within the nation has been paused, however solely briefly, due to an government order from President Donald Trump — the ByteDance-owned firm is now encouraging Android machine homeowners to sideload its video app onto their telephones and tablets.

The corporate introduced in a Friday X post that its Android app can be obtainable for direct obtain on the web site TikTok.com/obtain. This permits it to benefit from an Android characteristic that lets customers obtain apps from outdoors the Google Play Retailer. An analogous possibility isn’t but obtainable on iPhones outdoors the EU.

The Android app obtain is being made obtainable as an Android Package deal Equipment, extra generally often known as an APK file, which accommodates the app’s code, property, and different assets that TikTok must run.

By providing a standalone obtain, TikTok can at the very least briefly skirt the present app retailer ban, which nonetheless prevents each Google Play and Apple’s App Retailer from internet hosting the app whereas the ban’s enforcement stays paused.