iPhone with TikTok app installed listed on eBay
By: Jonathan Limehouse
USA Today
..... Some iPhone users never deleted TikTok during its brief ban in the U.S., and now some of those individuals are selling their phones for thousands of dollars on eBay as the popular app remains absent from Apple's App Store.
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Users with the app downloaded on their phones can access the short-video platform that returned for millions in the U.S. on Sunday [01/19/2025] and Monday. [01/20/2025] While some can jump back on TikTok without a hitch, others who either deleted or never downloaded the app remain in the dark as the Apple and Google App stores in the U.S. still don't have it available.
..... It is unclear when TikTok will return to the app store despite President Donald Trump signing an executive order to delay enforcing the ban. Nonetheless, several iPhone owners who have kept the app downloaded are now selling their brand-new or used phone from up to $25,000.
..... Requests for comment from TikTok and eBay on Wednesday [01/22/2025] were not immediately answered.
..... An eBay user in Ruskin, Florida, listed an iPhone 15 Pro Max "with TikTok" for $10,000 or best offer. According to the listing, the device had received more than 1,800 views over 24 hours.
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Other eBay users listed i Phones with TikTok installed for prices between $500 and $25,000 depending on the model and condition. The $25,000 listing from a seller in Whittier, North Carolina, was for an iPhone 16 Pro Max with the app installed.
..... It was unclear if the iPhone with TikTok installed were selling, but most of the more than 2,000 phones being auctioned on eBay did not nave active bids. The phones that had offers were older iPhone models that were going for about $100 to $200.
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One eBay seller in Raleigh, North Carolina, even listed a 128 gigabyte iPhone 15 Pro with TikTok and Cap Cut, a video-editiing app owned by TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance, installed for more than $4.5 million.
..... The timeline for TikTok's return to Google and Apple app stores is musky, but Trump has given the app's users hope as he proposed a joint venture involving the U.S. woning 50% of the app.
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"They'll have something that's actually more valuable because they have the ultimate partner, and the United States will make it very worthwhile for them in terms of the permits and everything else, Trump said after meeting with TikTok's owners.
..... Trump also said he is open to Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk or Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison buying TikTok. If either billionaire buys the app, it could speed up its return to app stores.
..... It seemingly would take a deal getting done to get TikTok on the app stores, which is something General Atlantic CEO Bill Ford told Axios will get done during an event on Wednesday 01/22/2025] in Davos, Switzerland.
..... General Atlantic is a major investor in ByeDance, and Ford is on TikTok's Chinese parent company's board of directors.
..... "We'll get on with it, as soon as maybe the end of the week in terms of negotiating what might work. ... The Chinese government, the U.S. government and the company the board all have to be involved in this conversation," Ford said, according to Axios.