On the heels of FaceTime being blocked in multiple Middle Eastern countries, SaudiMac investigated how the video calling service is actually blocked in the iPhone’s file system. Hidden deep in the file system (revealed via SSH on a jailbroken device) is a file dictating what is restricted per region. SaudiMac has determined that countries marked with a “NOVOIP” restriction are the one’s that have FaceTime blocked in that region. We’ve taken this even further and discovered that this file not only exists in iPhones and iPod touches with FaceTime, but also exists for the iPad.
The screenshot above is from the file displaying the iPad’s restrictions (SaudiMac pulled the iPhone’s). As you can see, FaceTime for iPad is restricted in Middle Eastern nations like the United Arab Emirates, but obviously an interesting thing here is that FaceTime for iPad doesn’t exist. Sure, the next iPad is likely to have a camera, but perhaps Apple will let the current iPad do “VoiceTime”.
Also, what’s this about a “Google” block, above? (thanks, Weito!)
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