Zeta is off the App Store: what Scatter Lab says and what still works

Zeta, Scatter Lab's AI story and character chat app, can no longer be downloaded on an iPhone. It vanished from the App Store overnight on November 6 to 7, and Scatter Lab posted a notice the same day saying downloads and App Store payments are unavailable while it works on a fix. This page sets out what we found, what Scatter Lab says, and what still works.

Status on November 8, 12:51 a.m. Eastern: not on the App Store in any of the 51 storefronts we tried, including the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, Korea and Japan. Still on Google Play, with an update dated November 4. The website at zeta-ai.io loads. Scatter Lab says it is working to bring the iPhone app back and has not said why it is gone; Apple has said nothing. Our daily App Store tracker checks it and about 150 other AI companion apps in 53 countries every morning.

What happened

Zeta's iPhone app was listed as zeta: AI Chat, Story, Play, sold by Scatter Lab, Inc. When the Internet Archive saved the US listing on October 27, it carried a 13+ age rating, an average of 4.7 stars from about 42,000 ratings, the number 10 spot in the Entertainment chart and the line "Top App Choice for 12M+ Users!". Its description promised free, unlimited chats with no charge per message.

On the evening of November 6, Eastern time, which was already the morning of November 7 in Japan and Korea, users began asking whether Zeta had disappeared from the App Store. A Japanese blog that looked into it at 8:59 p.m. Eastern still found the app in Japan's App Store, on version 3.51.4. By 2:12 a.m. on November 7 another Japanese blog reported that new downloads had stopped and quoted Scatter Lab's notice. That afternoon a post on r/ChaiApp was titled "Zeta Removed from AppStore".

We checked at 12:22 a.m. Eastern on November 8. The App Store page returned Not Found in the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, Korea and Japan, and by 12:51 a.m. Apple's own app lookup had found no listing in any of 51 storefronts, among them Ireland, New Zealand, India, Germany, France, Brazil and Mexico. An App Store search for Zeta shows nothing from Scatter Lab under a new name.

What Scatter Lab says

Scatter Lab's notice, dated November 7 and posted in Japanese on Zeta's announcements page, apologises and says that "currently" the zeta app cannot be downloaded and in-app payments cannot be made on the App Store. In our translation, it says:

• The app keeps working as normal on phones that already have it.
• Anyone who has downloaded it before can reinstall it from the App Store's list of their purchased apps.
• Anyone who never had it, or can't reinstall it, can use the web version.
• In-app purchases and subscription renewals through the App Store are unavailable, subscriptions already bought work until they expire, and payments on the web version work as usual.
• Scatter Lab is working to restore the app so that people can use it on the App Store again, and will announce that in the app and on its official social accounts.

The notice gives no reason and no date. Apple does not usually explain removals, and from the outside an app that Apple takes down looks the same as one its developer pulls.

Zeta is the fourth character-chat app to leave the App Store since mid-October, after PolyBuzz on October 15, Chai on October 22 and Tipsy Chat by the same day. All three were still missing on November 8. On October 16 Apple rewrote its rule on user-generated content to name AI apps. Neither Apple nor Scatter Lab has linked that change to Zeta.

What still works

• Zeta already on your iPhone: Scatter Lab says it keeps working as normal. If yours still opens, there is no need to delete it.
• Reinstalling: if you have had Zeta before, Scatter Lab's steps are: open the App Store, tap your profile picture at the top right, open the list of apps you have bought or downloaded, search for zeta and tap the download button. We have not tried this ourselves.
• The web: zeta-ai.io loads its character feed in a browser, so on an iPhone you can use it in Safari. We did not sign in, so we cannot say how much carries over from the app, though Scatter Lab presents the web version as the way to keep using the service.
• Android: Zeta is on Google Play as zeta: AI Chat, Story, Play. On November 8 it loaded from the US, the UK and Korea, with more than 5 million downloads, an average of 4.4 stars in the US and an update dated November 4. Google Play rates it Mature 17+ in the US.

If you pay through the App Store

A Zeta subscription bought on an iPhone is an Apple subscription. Scatter Lab says it keeps working until it runs out, but it cannot renew through the App Store for now, and new in-app purchases there are unavailable too. Its notice sends people who want to keep paying to the payment page on Zeta's web version. To cancel a plan bought through Apple, go to the iPhone's Settings, tap your name, then Subscriptions; refunds for App Store purchases are Apple's decision.

What we updated

The changes log and our table of AI companion shutdowns and store removals now record Zeta's removal. Our change watch checks its App Store listing twice a day from November 8, so if the app comes back we will add the date here.