Apps claiming to use Chinese satellite navigation system Beidou see a surge in downloads, but they might just use GPS

China has been working on its GPS competitor since 1994, and this year it finally completed and launched the Beidou Navigation Satellite System. Many iPhone users in the country were apparently so eager to try the new system that they rushed to download various Beidou navigation apps.

But an app alone isn’t enough to connect to the new system. That requires a Beidou-enabled chipset. Without it, many of these patriotic netizens might actually be using US-owned GPS without realising it.

That hasn’t stopped iPhone users from giving these Beidou apps on Apple’s iOS App Store in mainland China near-perfect ratings. Some of the comments are brimming with pride.

“Finally we have our own navigation system. She will surpass any country and organisation and become the No. 1,” one user wrote in a review for one of the Beidou apps. “This is one of the important signs of China Renaissance!”

The App Store has more than a dozen of these apps with generic names like “Beidou navigation” that have been climbing the download charts. Most of them look like standard map apps and claim to use Beidou. But Apple has never confirmed that iPhones support China’s navigation system.

Spec sheets for iPhones show that they have “built-in GPS/GNSS”. GNSS stands for global navigation satellite systems, an umbrella term for all such systems. So far, though, the iPhone is only confirmed to support GPS, Europe’s Galileo system and Russia’s Glonass. We asked Apple last month, before Beidou was put into use, about whether iPhones support the new system, but we didn’t hear back.

China takes pride in Beidou as its own independently developed GNSS. State media outlets have made sure to stress the system’s success, and Beidou has repeatedly become a trending topic on Chinese social media. So some app makers are taking advantage of these patriotic feelings to peddle their own products. One of these apps is even bluntly named “Beidou navigation – national pride.”

Most new Chinese smartphones today already support Beidou, and as many as 70 per cent of phones in use in China use Beidou services. Flagship handsets like the Huawei P40, Oppo Find X2 Pro, Xiaomi 10 Pro and Vivo X50 Pro all list Beidou support on their product pages. Even recent Samsung smartphones like the Galaxy S20 5G have Beidou support.

While Apple may have lost out to Huawei in Chinese market share in June, iPhones still have a dedicated user base in China. And recent price cuts in the country have even aided Apple’s fortunes there. But last month some netizens were angered by an article saying the iPhone doesn’t support Beidou. For some, smartphone allegiance and national pride can sometimes go hand in hand.

But for those who might not be aware of how location data works on phones, the Beidou apps can be deceptive. We asked Apple if the company plans to do anything about the apps but didn’t receive a response.

At least one of the apps has already disappeared, though. An app named “Beidou navigation – HD satellite map”, which was at the top of the Navigation category and the eighth most-downloaded app overall, can no longer be found. Other Beidou apps remain available.