Apple Accused of Promoting Scam Apps in Its App Store (arstechnica.com) 17
"Developers are once again publicly highlighting instances in which Apple has failed to keep scam apps off of the app store," reports Ars Technica:
The apps in question charge users unusual fees and siphon revenue from legitimate or higher-quality apps. While Apple has previously come under fire for failing to block apps like these from being published, developers complained this week that Apple was actually actively promoting some of these apps...
Apple continues to play whack-a-mole with these apps, but various developers have both publicly and privately complained that the company takes too long. One developer we exchanged emails with claimed that, when they discovered a scam app that stole assets from their own legitimate app and which was clearly designed to siphon users from the real app, Apple took 10 days to remove the app, while Google only took "1-2 days" on the Android side. The app was allowed back on Apple's App Store once the stolen assets were removed. During the long waiting period, the developer of the legitimate app lost a significant amount of users and revenue, while the developer of the illegitimate app profited.
As Apple fights legal battles to prevent third-party app stores from making their way to iOS on the basis that those alternative app stores may be less secure than Apple's own, claims from developers that scam apps are slipping through may undermine Apple's defense.
Apple continues to play whack-a-mole with these apps, but various developers have both publicly and privately complained that the company takes too long. One developer we exchanged emails with claimed that, when they discovered a scam app that stole assets from their own legitimate app and which was clearly designed to siphon users from the real app, Apple took 10 days to remove the app, while Google only took "1-2 days" on the Android side. The app was allowed back on Apple's App Store once the stolen assets were removed. During the long waiting period, the developer of the legitimate app lost a significant amount of users and revenue, while the developer of the illegitimate app profited.
As Apple fights legal battles to prevent third-party app stores from making their way to iOS on the basis that those alternative app stores may be less secure than Apple's own, claims from developers that scam apps are slipping through may undermine Apple's defense.
It's almost as if they only care about money (Score:3, Funny)
Scam apps, unless there is some actual testing of submitted apps are to be expected.
Promoting scam apps may suggest that Apple is getting a kickback... /s?
Re: (Score:1)
A kickback on top of taking the lion's share out of the profits for essentially doing jack all for the creator?
How could anyone who isn't doing a scam app, i.e. one that has a different business model aside of making money off the regular, genuine Apple market, do that? Essentially, if it's promoted by Apple, it pretty much must be a scam, else it couldn't survive.
I know this is naive (Score:2)
I mean, how much human time is spent coming up with and implementing new scams? I wish we could all just agree not to make scam apps anymore. Couldn't scam programmers spend their time making apps that were actually useful? They obviously have programming skills. And there are useful apps that don't exist. Seems like a perfect match.
I have an iPad, and I would really like an app that would show me a calendar, the weather, and maybe a few headlines or emails at the same time. I used to do this easily on the
Re: (Score:2)
Scamming people is just more profitable.
They are just incompetent,not deliberate malicious (Score:1, Troll)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
They are deliberately lying about their level of competence when they claim their walled garden protects users from threats like malware. They are doing it for material gain, so this is textbook fraud. They are promoting the malicious software in their store, after allegedly vetting the product, so they are also accessories to any relevant crimes — they claim to have checked it for malicious activity when they have clearly done no such thing.
How is that not malice?
Oh look, Apple Astroturfing (Score:2)
The real question is, does Apple employ moderators, or was my comment modded down by an editor protecting Apple Slashvertising income?
Re: They are just incompetent,not deliberate malic (Score:2)
They are doing it for material gain, so this is textbook fraud.
I don't think that word means what you think it means.
Candy Crush, Fortnite, Clash of Clans... (Score:1)
What do we get out of them?
It's all a bit of a scam, really.
marketplace watcher (Score:1)