Apple has long been a proponent for gay pride and empowerment, what with its CEO being an openly gay man. This has been reflected, for instance, with this band for the Apple Watch.
The Watch also has a special watch face in tandem with this accessory - a vertical strip of colors representing gay pride - that has, as of the past couple months, been blocked in Russia. Mounting reports from users in the country speak of this option simply not existing on both the Watch app on their respective iPhones, as well as on the Watches themselves.
Further investigation by iOS developer Guilherme Rambo have revealed that the pride watch face is hardcoded to vanish for users in Russia locales. This was confirmed by the good folks from The Verge, who observed this phenomenon by changing their iOS device"s location to Russia.
As disappointing as this move must be for many, this does come in light of Russia"s rising intolerance against the gay community, which reached its peak when the country passed an anti-gay propaganda law in 2013. Incidentally, the aforementioned watch band isn"t being sold in Russia either, so it"s easy to come to the conclusion that Apple is simply looking to avoid litigation. The company has released no statement so far on this matter.
Source: Guilherme Rambo (Twitter), The Verge| Image via Wareable