Apple is doing its best to keep its profit margins afloat even as its iPhone cash cow is dying without anything to replace it. China is problematic particularly when the nation is engaged in a trade war with the US.

So when the government complained that it was not doing enough to filter out banned material, Apple rushed to defend free speech and American values by pulling more than 25,000 “illegal apps” from its App Store.

Apple said that gambling apps were illegal and not allowed on the App Store in China.

"We have already removed many apps and developers for trying to distribute illegal gambling apps on our App Store, and we are vigilant in our efforts to find these and stop them from being on the App Store."

The removals were reported earlier by Chinese state broadcaster CCTV on Sunday, which said 25,000 apps were pulled. Apple didn't confirm that number. It offers more than 1.8 million apps in China, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Removing 25,000 apps was just 1.4 percent of the total so no big deal, says the Tame Apple Press.