Dev Booted From App Store For Inflated Reviews 178
An anonymous reader writes "Molinker, a Chinese developer of iPhone apps, has been booted from the App Store after being caught trying to game the App Store review system. It seems reviewers were being paid off with free apps in return for 5-star reviews." This means the removal of over 1000 apps, described in this article as "knock-offs of existing applications."
Re:Which scam? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How in the heck did he get 1000 apps in the sto (Score:4, Informative)
The quantity of apps on the app store suggest that you're mistaken...
Regardless, thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of developers prove you wrong - it's not that difficult to get an app approved.
You can't really come to that conclusion without knowing the ratio of rejected apps to allowed apps. It could be that ten million apps have been submitted, and only about 1% approved. Or, it could be that 125,000 apps have been submitted and 80% have been approved. Only knowing the number that have been approved is not sufficient to make the claim that it's easy to get approved.
Re:How in the heck did he get 1000 apps in the sto (Score:3, Informative)
pushes the boundaries of what Apple considers acceptable
The problem is that those boundaries are not defined. Which is why we get rejections on artistic grounds [politico.com] and other such stupidities.
Re:How in the heck did he get 1000 apps in the sto (Score:3, Informative)
Update: So that I don't appear to be trolling, let me point out that I just noticed this: Apple did approve that political app [cnet.com] that I was just referring to.
Re:Did anyone look at their other apps???!? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:At The Risk (Score:3, Informative)
You might want to check out the MP3 player market, particularly so-called "Chipods". Tons of fake products (literally tons), and just as many that merely copy Apple design without using the name. The worst fakes have copies of all the printed material included with originals. I also have a small collection of Sony-branded USB storage, not one of which has been inside a Sony factory. A trip to the high-tech areas of China would show you just how bad it is. Enter any electronics store, and marvel at all the mobile phones - Motorola-branded phones with an interface you're not likely to see anywhere on a western phone, and colours the original manufacturer never would be caught dead producing. To be fair, most support dual SIMMs, at least :)
Re:At The Risk (Score:1, Informative)
In chinese there is no literal translation for "Yes" and "No".
There are, however, words that roughly compare to English words for "yes" and "no". The closest word to "yes" in Chinese is shi the verb that means to be. Thus, if someone asks if such and such a condition is true, the answer could be, quite simply shi, "it is". Another word that fits for general purposes is dui "true", which can also be used to affirm any question posed. However, beyond this, the easiest way to say "yes" in Chinese is just by using the appropriate verb for the sentence. For example, if asked ni yao chi wufan ma "do you want to eat lunch", the best response may be yao "want"; or even by answering the entire question in the affirmative.
Words for "no" are a little more tricky. Their are several words for negation in Chinese, such as bu, mei, bie (, , ) but all of them are adverbs, used only to modify verbs. "Bu", the most common negation in Chinese, has almost no meaning by itself, somewhat like English "not". You can say someone is bu pao "not running", but you can not say that they are bu "not". This being said, the easiest way to say "no" in Chinese is by taking the ways of saying "yes", and then negating them using "bu" or another negating adverb. So, bu shi "Not is", or bu dui "not true", or, again, bu followed by whatever verb is appropriate.
Re:Knock-offs (Score:3, Informative)