Cartoon HD is an app that went through an interesting ride over its lifetime. Upon its initial release, it instantly became one of the most popular and actively discussed apps on the iTunes App Store, and before long, it was all over the Web, as various discussion boards were talking about it actively. Meanwhile, Apple have been receiving tons of complaints about the app from copyright holders, which eventually led to its removal from iTunes, while Google also took similar action against its version on their Play Store.
Why was the app so popular though? It allowed users to easily watch their favorite cartoons from their childhood for free, without having to subscribe for a monthly payment plan or anything like that, while also offering good streaming quality and convenient access to a good selection of shows on the fly. Of course, this was all running on an unlicensed basis, which explains why copyright holders were so quick to take action against the app.
Now, it’s still not available for download at the iTunes store or the Play Store, even though copycat apps keep popping up on a nearly daily basis, only to get shut down quickly. Some are “legitimate”, in the sense that they offer the same functionality as the original, while others are just scams relying on the name to trick people into downloading them to unknown effects.
The big question for a lot of people has been whether the app is ever coming back. While there have been plenty of rumors about that, both Google and Apple are still adamant that they’re not going to allow the app to return to their stores in its original form. Of course, there’s pretty much no other way it’s ever going to work out, as it would be impossible for the developer studio to strike an acceptable deal with all copyright holders while still offering their content for free.
Meanwhile, copies of the app can also be found in website form at various places around the Internet, and some have been gaining strong popularity and support among users. Due to their nature, they can also be more difficult to take down, so there has been hope for some that these copies will remain for some time. Some of them are even supported on mobile devices, which could make them a nice replacement for the original Cartoon HD, although it’s still a completely different experience to have a dedicated app which runs smoothly and has a properly designed interface that works fine for the job. For now, it seems that Cartoon HD on mobile devices is gone for good and is not coming back.