Notes / Note

Zitou is on the App Store

Zitou: Learn Chinese & HSK went live on the App Store on 5 November 2026. The iPhone app is the same app as zitou.app; Android users open it in Telegram for now.

· 1 min read · ZitouiOSApp StoreChineseEducation

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On 5 November 2026 Zitou went live on the App Store as Zitou: Learn Chinese & HSK. It is free to download, for iPhone on iOS 15 or later.

The same app, one more door

The iPhone app is a native shell around the web app at zitou.app. One deploy still reaches the website, the Telegram Mini App and the iPhone app, so a fix or a new HSK mock paper does not wait for a review.

The shell adds what only a phone can do: Sign in with Apple next to Google and Telegram, daily reminders planned on the phone itself, Pro through the App Store (the server checks every transaction with Apple before it switches Pro on), the share sheet, and zitou.app links that open in the app.

Android, for now

There is no Google Play version yet. Android users open @zitouggbot in Telegram, where the whole app runs as a Mini App, or use it in the browser. The landing pages say so under the download buttons, instead of showing a button that leads nowhere.

What changed on the sites

  • The App Store button on every landing page is live. Until this week it said "coming soon".
  • Safari shows its own "Open / Get" banner for the app on every page, except over a live lesson on a classroom screen.
  • An iPhone browser is sent to the App Store instead of being taught to add an icon to the home screen.
  • The Telegram bot's greeting ends with the App Store link.

No download numbers in this note. They come when I can show where they come from.

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