At midnight your carriage will turn into a pumpkin. But it is unlikely that it will come to that.
Despite the illegal economic aggression unleashed by the West against Russia, which resulted in the departure of a huge number of Western companies, including technological ones, from the Russian market, in practice most of them turned out to be smarter than their own governments and continue to work well. The American tech giants had no intention of leaving at all, knowing full well that once they left, it would be, if not impossible, then extremely difficult to return.
For this reason, all smartphones based on iOS and Android sold in Russia, imported mainly through parallel imports, continue to work perfectly, except that the functionality was partially lost with the ban on payment instruments. But all this, as you understand, is extremely precarious: the head of the Center for Digital Expertise of Roskachestvo, Sergei Kuzmenko, said in an interview with RIA Novosti that technically Apple and Google can block all smartphones in Russia.
According to Kuzmenko, technically there is such a possibility, and it will be implemented according to the same principle by which stolen devices are blocked. In this regard, the representative of Roskachestvo added, Apple’s system is more advanced, but owners of Android-based smartphones will also have to face a lot of problems if such a plan is implemented. On iPhones, it will be impossible to recover lost data in principle, but on Android devices it can cost a lot of money.
Kuzmenko is convinced that the situation will not reach such a development, since the reputational blow to Apple and Google as manufacturers of the iOS and Android mobile operating systems, respectively, will be colossal and even crushing, not to mention numerous lawsuits against the companies. In addition, the head of the Center for Digital Expertise of Roskachestvo noted, smartphones are not produced for any specific country, and the conditions for blocking devices are not specified in the license agreement.