Last week, Apple took the step of removing all vaping-related apps from the App Store without warning. The first we knew about it was the below notification from Apple themselves, stating the GHOST Vapes app was in breach of their updated policies:
At GHOST we have invested significant time and money in engineering the best-in-class dry herb and extract vaporizer. This included the creation of an app for both Android and iOS to enable users to better manage their vaping experience:
- The ability to fully customize temperatures within 1-degree increments to enable more accurate dosing
- Lock your MV1 to increase the security of your device and ensure no one could use it without unlocking
- Ability to update the firmware with later versions that were being designed to improve performance to always ensure our consumers had the best in class device for dry herb and extract consumption
It goes without saying that Apple have taken this step as a result of the recent well-publicized incidents of vape-associated lung injury (EVALI) which has been established by CDC to be caused by inappropriate chemicals being used in e-liquid preparations by unscrupulous manufacturers and suppliers (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/pdfs/mm6845e2-H.pdf) which have caused numerous illnesses and several deaths.
At best this causes real inconvenience for our iOS customers who have yet to download the app; at worst it betrays a tragic misunderstanding of the ‘vaping’ industry as a whole. Dry herb vaporizers like the MV1 are not only not intended for use with oils and liquids, they cannot be used with them. To place devices like the MV1 in the same category as cheap black-market vaporizer cartridges shows a dangerous ignorance of the distinctions.
Our whole reason for being was so that we could allow our customers to be able to vape pure flower in the safest way possible – no adulteration, no synthetic chemicals, personalized dosing, and no burning. Ultimately Respect The Flower. We have to hope that as a result of actions like this, consumers are not pushed towards the very thing that is causing the current harm.
In an attempt to be heard and make a difference we have put together a change.org petition to push for a reversal of this decision or (at the very least) a revision to allow the public to have access to safer methods of consumption and re-instate the apps. It takes 2 minutes to sign and the more weight we can get behind this the louder all of our voices will be heard!
Meanwhile, we are deeply saddened that we can no longer continue to deliver 100% of the above functionality to iOS users. For existing customers and potential iOS users, we have written another post covering how to get the best our of the MV1 without the iOS app. Remember, customers already with the app are not affected – it will not be removed from your phones, and Android is still fine!
