It has been used within China as an alternative to the Wylie transliteration for writing Tibetan in the Latin script since 1982.
[2][3] Tibetan pinyin is a phonetic transcription, and as such its spelling is tied to actual pronunciation (although tone is not marked).
[4] Wylie on the other hand is a transliteration system, where mechanical conversion to and from Tibetan and Latin script is possible.
Within academic circles, Wylie transliteration (with a v replacing the apostrophe) is more commonly used.
Sometimes there is intersyllabic influence: The IETF language tag for Tibetan pinyin is bo-Latn-pinyin.