Apple watch keyboard developer put off by app store scammers
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It reminds me of my first App Store experience. I made an app that was somewhat successful (about 2000€ a month, enough to pay for a students living expenses).
Within short time, a chinese speaking developer cloned it. They copied the icon (slighlty different color), they copied the UI, they even copied all the text in the dialog boxes. They released the app with a slightly different name.
I contacted Apple to complain about the obvious copyright infringement, but they only forwarded my complaint to the developer. Interestingly enough, the developer actually replied to me. They sent an email threating legal action. I asked them to at least change the icon, and they did. But until today, the rest of the cloned app is still on the app store and competes with my app.
It's not comparable to your case, since in my case the competitor wasn't a scammer, just someone with a very lose interpretation of intellectual property.
But it makes me feel that Apple really doesn't give a shit what goes on in their store, as long as they make their 30%. (or 15% from small fish like me now)
Its a very difficult situation. However the issue is if Apple takes a view, they open themselves up to legal risk - they are not the court so its not their place to determine copyright infrigement. Rather, if you get a court order stating infringement, then Apple has to take down the offending app.
Whilst yours may be a clear cut case, it is not too difficult to think of examples where it is not copyright infringement or is very difficult to prove - is Signal an infrigement of Whatsapp?
I don't think Apple could have done anything differently, to some extent it is your word vs. theirs and the right medium to settle the dispute is the legal system, not Apple.
"Because our app was posted first" is not enough.
So, I suspect Apple just wants to stay out of it, let courts decide based on a collection of evidence (and whomever has the money to pay for lawyers, and time to do all the proceedings), and profit no matter who wins.
I seriously doubt this has ever happened in the history of the App Store.
Scammers are "lazy". The look for the easy targets. Copying an existing app is easier and more lucrative than trying to write a new app based just on some in-progress screenshots, as if scammers would even be paying attention to you before you published an app.
Don't know about the App Store, but people have copied in-progress websites and did copy-cat products (sometimes complete with the original artwork/styles).
I wonder if they had bought website visit statistics via e.g. Alexa? And in the app store, they'll see how many downloads? ratings? already existing apps have, and can decide, based on that?
Meaning, "who was first" can work fine, most of the time?
> "theirs could be available in another store, and you copied theirs from there"
And one would need to check different app stores, e.g. who was first in any of Google Play and Apple's App Store?
Or theirs could be available in another store, and you copied theirs from there.
However, I have yet to write an app that has been highly successful, so being copied has not been a problem for me.
Seeing the behavior of these scammers, I have no doubt that they would gleefully take my source, tweak the storyboard, and release a clone. They don’t seem to have any sense of shame, at all. Some of these shops have stables of hundreds of apps; each, a minor tweak of other apps in their roster.
It is annoying that Apple gives me a hard time for some small cosmetic detail on my app, while rubberstamping these tsunamis of pure, shameless garbage.
I do get annoyed by “looks like” scams. A couple of years ago, my wife accidentally purchased a “looks like” app that was basically a screengrab of another app (and was approved on the App Store!).
She was able to get the subscription (!) canceled, but it was a pain. Apple also left the junk app on the store.
She was also so unnerved by the situation, that she never got the original app, so it shows that these spam/scam apps can cause a lot of collateral damage.
Getting a refund did not fix the problem.
Also... I just realized... in the same way the article OP mentioned they were ahead of everyone else wrt features/implementation etc, I wonder if the scammers are ahead of the game in terms of preternaturally staying under the App/Play Store radars? Like, specifically, exactly what might they be doing, I wonder?
These folks are experts. They probably know exactly what terminology to use, which screens to optimize, etc. Just because they are scammers, doesn't mean they are stupid.
They could probably actually make legit money, giving classes on the Apple App Store process.
And yeah, wow, the scammers could give classes... with the only irony that the once out of the "game", as it were, an individual ex-player's info will literally become outdated within 30 seconds :/ - or at least that's the impression I get.
Yeah, the Apple app provisioning system changes so much, and so quickly, that you blink; you miss it.
Also a movie or song is a lot easier to determine copyright infringement. But a program might be harder due to its complexities.
But this is just my thoughts, I'm no expert AT ALL.
In effect, you'd be triggering the same sequence that led to youtube-dl being blocked on GitHub for a while. Surely, GitHub = Microsoft didn't build it, but they still had to block access when the RIAA sent a DMCA.
In the youtube-dl case, the DMCA notice was later found to be fraudulent and thus the access was restored. But if the infringing app re-uses images verbatim, that won't happen so it stays offline.
Most often things are morally neutral, and can be used for good or bad, some things are morally bad and it is difficult to use them for morally good things, and some things are morally good and it is difficult to use for morally bad. But most things are morally neutral. I think the DMCA is morally bad, but here he can use it for a moral good. But even when you use a morally bad thing for good it is still slightly bad, as in people could point at his usage here (if he chose to use it) and say "see the DMCA isn't bad" and the benefit for the bad solution his good usage promotes would taint his good usage ever so slightly.
As I tend to be more of a pragmatist I would say use the DMCA takedown if possible, but I can understand someone else feeling that would be bad.
Your view is Stallman-esque, but the world is not so clear cut in terms of good/evil. At best, I would say the abuse of the DMCA by large entities is an unintended consequence of the existence of the DMCA, and it could be patched up by lawmakers if there weren't already a remedy for DMCA requests made in bad faith.
The problem is that places like Youtube have implemented policies more strict than the DMCA that do enable big content owners to bypass the DMCA process and remove user content without much recourse.
Said threat only comes from big content owners, and they don't even bother to check if they have the rights to the content before issuing a DMCA challenge. A small-fry content owner doesn't have the resources to find copyright infringement, while big content providers simply scrape everything with automation and issue a claim on even the flimsiest match.
At YouTube, big content doesn't even have to do the work, they've pushed the work off to YouTube's content ID system which automatically demonetizes (or, better yet, gives the revenue to the claimant).
Again, DMCA works out in favor of the small-fry content owner who more than likely has the resources to find copyright infringement (Google searches are free), but that certainly doesn't have the resources to take every case of copyright violation to court for injunction or other remedy.
Pre-DMCA, if someone posted content that I created to a website, my main recourse would be to ask the website nicely to remove said content and hope they didn't immediately delete my request. I could try to sue the website for violating my copyright by distributing my content without my permission.
Post-DMCA, if someone posts content that I created to a website, I can file an un-ignorable DMCA complaint with the website, and there are defined timelines and processes that must be followed if the website does not want to take on liability for distributing my content.
It's unfortunate that big content owners abuse the system, but it's unfair to say that there are no benefits for small content owners.
Also, the entire premise of your DMCA example for small creators is false and trivializes the difficulty of even finding violations. "Google searches are free"? As if I can spend 5 minutes google "who copied my stuff"?
that's sort of a nonsensical statement - it would mean that abuse cannot be patched up if there is a remedy. But how does abuse happen if there is a remedy? Surely the remedy is not very good if it does not stop abuse? But abuse cannot be stopped because there is a remedy.
That's some catch there, that catch-22.
At any rate given that I said most things were neutral and only some things were bad or good I don't know that I am very Stallman-esque - or is it just because I, as many other people, have identified one particular thing as being bad that Stallman also identified as bad. Geez, I don't wanna be like that guy - I guess I should change my viewpoint.
Then again, maybe I'm just John Doe-ish, assuming your average John Doe when told about the abuses of the DMCA thinks - whoa, that's messed up! I wonder why the lawmakers don't do anything to fix it, I bet there's some non-working remedy that prevents it!
The target of the complaint can file a counter-notice. That is the remedy that you have if there is a false complaint made against you.
There is no catch-22 here - there is a clear path to follow within the legal system for cases of abuse. Could it be patched up to be better? Sure. But catch-22? There is no rule preventing you from responding to or addressing false complaints. If anything, the catch-22 comes from the sites that benefit from DMCA that don't allow DMCA counter-notices, or even worse that pre-emptively remove user submitted content that it suspects will generate DMCA notices. In that case, your argument skews toward "posted speed limits encourage a system where law enforcement officers set up speed traps" - but would we be better off without speed limits altogether? Or maybe just with some limitations on the problems that arise from them?
The net benefit of DMCA is better than without DMCA. The non-DMCA alternative is that I can go post the text of Harry Potter to Reddit, and J.K. Rowling can sue Reddit for distribution of her (registered) copyrighted material for damages. With DMCA, J.K. Rowling can send a DMCA notice to Reddit, and Reddit can take the post down and offer me the chance to respond that the content is not in violation - but Reddit is not in peril.
I'm not a lawyer, but I took a grad level IP law class as part of my undergrad coursework. I think people like us stand to benefit quite a bit from learning how things work at that level.
I guess the Chinese copycat will still be sold in China and other non-compliant markets for IP law but that would ba a partial victory.
Just because another app works similar to another app does not mean it's infringing.
Apple is not in the same position: the businesses who would sue them to try to force them to enforce their copyright are much much smaller than it (and are additionally very reliant on Apple).
That is, you can make a drink that tastes like Coca-Cola, but you should not sell a drink in bottles shaped like Coca-Cola's, with a red label, and imitating the longhand of the name. That is, you should not make something excessively similar to an existing established thing in order to trick customers into buying your thing instead of the established thing.
Just out of pure curiosity, where did you live/study that 2000 Euros are student living expenses?
In my neck of the woods in central-western Europe (Austria), 1000 Euros per month is already really good money for most students and 2000 is what you make as a junior full time employee in a good tech company.
But if you also want to go out, go to restaurants/bars regularly and live in a nice place (not a shared dorm room), 1500-2000€ are way better.
The one I know most students have, is living very frugally, cooking at home, counting every penny to not go into more debt, studying hard to get a head start in life and partying hard on a budget, mostly house parties with booze bought from the supermarket with the occasional club or restaurant outing being a treat.
The other one is the Instagram lifestyle student, travelling to fancy places, practicing expensive sports and hobbies, eating out a lot, going bars and clubbing all the time. That's not your typical student, more like the 1%-er.
Living alone in a non-shared apartment is already a huge luxury for most students unless you come from a well-off family.
Plenty of students get bankrolled by a combination of scholarships, their parents, and loans, and have for decades. There’s nothing wrong with it (or with going the frugal route either).
Edit: To live in dorm 25 years ago in a standard Canadian university (for me) it cost $500/month plus another $500 a month in mandatory food card. That’s equivalent to 650 euros. That’s plus utilities, off campus food and drink, computer, recreation, and transportation, probably another 100-150 euros. My family was hardly rich (school teacher and truck driver) and helped out, I worked part time, and took out loans. Things are more expensive now.
A student having their own apartment (and a car??) is already a luxury 99% of the world will never experience.
They usually had a mix of parental help, loans and part time or coop program work, and scholarships. They weren’t super rich, they were from middle class Canadian families 25 years ago.
I even have a friend going to school today with a rental 5 bedroom house, as single parent raising 2 kids, and having 2 exchange students help out. Between scholarships , loans, and the students from China it covers expenses (well over €2k monthly).
I recognize that is richer than 99% of the world. It’s just my experience.
If you’re coming out of university and making £2k a month that is a bit low.
An MBA graduate makes €90k+ annually in Denmark. This is about the same in other European countries maybe +/- 10k
My point isn’t that some people have it good, it’s that €1-2k a month isn’t exactly glamorous living. The “jet setting” types (I have known a few) are getting an allowance of €3-4k+ monthly.
It isn't glamorous, you're right but I wasn't talking about inequality here, I was saying that very few students in Europe have 2K per month at their disposal.
>If you’re coming out of university and making £2k a month that is a bit low.
AFAIK, 2K Euros per month, after taxes, is your typical starting wage for a full time dev job in a decent company in countries like Germany. To get significantly more than 2K after taxes here as a new grad would put you in the top 10% of devs your age, definitely not the norm in the industry or in Europe.
>An MBA graduate makes €90k+ annually in Denmark.
Do you have a source for this? Because if you do then it would be best for me to give up my dev job in Germany and become an MBA in Denmark. Not /s, but quite serious.
https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/Germany/
SAP, not exactly known to be a top player, pays entry level jobs in Germany at around €50k: https://www.levels.fyi/comp.html?track=Software%20Engineer&s...
This grows €5k or so per year of experience with promotions.
Though if you leave Germany you’ll notice that your pay will nearly double. That said, job security in Germany is best in the world, so...
Some recent MBA surveys:
Economist: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2017/10/27/full-tim...
Harvard Business School: https://www.hbs.edu/recruiting/data/Pages/location-details.a...
Cambridge business school:
https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/programmes/mba/careers/employment-...
Germany MBAs tend to be a bit lower than average at €65k though I assume that’s due to labor protections etc. I am not an expert in German labor laws just going on information I have researched in the past. https://www.payscale.com/research/DE/Degree=Master_of_Busine...
Dunno about MBA out of school salaries but in tech in most of europe they are quite a lot lower than €90k. In France it's around 38-45k (pre-tax) depending on location (it can go upwards a bit if you are one of the chosen ones coming out of top universities)
Edit: also a source https://www.usinenouvelle.com/comparatif-des-ecoles-d-ingeni...
University of Cambridge in the UK for example estimates on their webpage £22k tuition for an undergraduate arts degree (double for medicine!) and £11k living expenses annually. With GBP/WUR exchange rate that’s €1550 on living expenses alone, and not “glam”.
https://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/international-stud...
INSEAD costs in France is almost double in living costs in Fontainebleau , and 3x in tuition... now admittedly a far more exclusive graduate school, but I have acquaintances in Canada that weren’t rich but really good students that got in and took out loans... the point is more about the living expense estimates :
https://www.insead.edu/master-programmes/mba/financing
For locals i am sure tuition is far lower but if you’re living away from home the living estimates above don’t seem too far off what I’ve seen.. though I’m sure many can scrape by on less.
Granted, I didn’t go to a prestigious grande école, rather just a “pretty good” engineering school. Also business schools are indeed more expensive than technical degrees. Not to mention that Paris region is way more expensive than the rest of the country.
For someone earning half a million, 2k may not seem much, but there goes your reality check. See the other response to your comment - living on €600/month is the more common student experience, maybe even above median.
Average income in the EU is somewhere around 30-40k/year, most parents will never ever have close to 2k/month per child. Even in expensive cities, most will live in shared student accommodation which is cheaper (200-300). This is what allows almost anyone to enjoy the cheap higher education, if it required even 1k spare income you would exclude the majority of the population.
Overall I’m also going by what many EU schools say are average expected living expenses for an international student. Invariably it’s a lot more than €600 a month.
I’m not denying folks can go to school on the cheap, I’m just saying that if you think €1-2k a month is ridiculous jet setting luxury, you’re wrong.
Definitely not true in Norway, it's closer to twice that.
I know Norway has high wages and prices but I can't imagine new-grads there making 4k after taxes.
If you think Levels.FYI caters to a niche, you’re playing yourself.
This idea that €2000 a month to live and study and pay for materials is some sort of "Instagram lifestyle" is ridiculous.
At my alma mater (SW Germany) you could live on 450 Euro with the same frugality. OTOH a friend (living in the same dorm!) burned through 2500 Euro a month, that's until his parents started to expect some progress after a few years.
But yes, it was still more than enough. I lived on around 600€ side job + 200€ government stipend before I made my app.
What about... a service, that helps walk you through these kinds of situations, handles country-specific implementation details, can help figure out the best approach for a given scenario, and give you the best chance of getting things sorted out...
...and...
...is NOT a "welcome, welcome, one and all" type of environment, and requires Twitter, GitHub, an HN profile, proof of long-term domain registration (eg, Internet Archive history) - the kinds of things that would be infuriatingly difficult for a scammer to successfully clone?
HN is absolutely big enough that "the HN crowd" would use something like this.
In fact, a service like this could theoretically develop working relationships with contacts inside Apple and Google, build a history/reputation of forwarding accurate, high-signal issues, and maybe help to mitigate the current mess of "problem must attract 10K views to be fixed".
On the surface (ie, legally speaking), it would absolutely be an exclusive environment. The idea (and probably secret sauce) would be figuring out how to delineate between scammers and legitimate devs.
I think what you're describing is interesting as it is sort of a different ground to tread, like a specialized version of the above.
Still, threatening legal action against the people they plagiarized? The audacity of this chinese...
What a Marketplace cares the most about is maximizing transactions. Hence, they care about having plenty of vendors and showing good reviews for those vendors so that people will buy. They really don’t want to police vendors too much because that means reducing offer and transactions.
1. Register your videos and images with the USCO. It'll cost <$100.
2. You can now file DMCA takedowns. Send one to Apple with the USCO registration ID and a copy of the image and a link to the app in question.
3. Apple will either immediately remove that fake app, or be liable for up to $350k in punitive damages for wilful infringement and lose all DMCA protection.
4. If Apple didn't react a week later, approach a lawyer. They'll likely be willing to work purely for 50% commission, because it'll be a slam dunk in court.
5. Repeat the same with Facebook / Youtube if they advertise there with your images or videos. Take Screenshots and write down the url and date and time.
Of course, one would hope that Apple will do the right thing, but it's also reasonably easy to force their hand.
That said, I don't know anyone for whom app development worked out financially if you fairly price your own labor. So maybe just stay away from cheap apps in general.
So dealing with all your described is just not practical. Time is valuable. If somebody is creative and wants to provide some value, fighting with the system, preparing some documents, registrations hiring lawyers etc. is the last thing they want to and likely would rather abandon the project instead. Life is too short to deal with the bullshit.
Not to mention that even if what you said is very reasonable most developers will have no idea. It's scammers (efficient ones) that have to know something about copyright law, DMCAs and so on.
Problem is not that easy to solve. App stores can't spend too many hours on each app because there's tons of them, and if they would only invest time in helping those apps that provide enough profit to be worth it, that would create inequality and also many outrages over inevitable false positives.
That said there are of course many many things Apple could be doing better, especially given their fees. Also I wish subscription based model would just die. Should only be for cloud based services and wherever possible those should be optional. Or at least as simple thing as automatically not paying for months when you didn't open the app (with very few exceptions like storage services etc).
Btw, we should have some attribute for web that marks link as scam/negative. These tweets and HN homepage just made those scam apps easier to find.
But what's the solution against copycats? I believe we should hold app stores responsible for counterfeit goods, the same way we'd punish Walmart for selling Chinese fakes. But then again, we kind of stopped enforcing that rule, too, as you can see with Amazon.
So effectively, the US has become the wild west for counterfeit products and copyright infringing apps.. Except, of course, if you're the movie industry.
In this specific case it seems they didn't even spend one minute, since the app is not working. If at Apple they don't have the resource to at least try to open every app (I doubt it, they are swimming in cash), they could at least find a way to decide which apps to test first, like complaints from other developers, reviews telling that the app is a scam etc.
It is like that Key and Peele skit about robbing a bank by working there.
If you can create a working app why not leave it as is ?
This is trivial to implement and done by many developers.
Whether it works or not probably won't get you fired as an app reviewer. But miss some IAP workaround that an app is using and I'd bet it could be your job.
Having customers distrust their App Store is really bad for them in the long run, and would be a competitive advantage over Google if their store was less crammed with garbage.
As it stands now, I usually find apps by looking for solid reviews outside of the App Store app, and am very wary about purchasing anything.
Well, sucks to be them, then, since that's the reality.
What do you care about people in North Korea? If the country was doing well, maybe they would have the biggest semiconductor fab. Or maybe you would be using some great open source that came from there.
I agree that there is no point shouting at the clouds when there is no action that you can take to fix the problem. But in some cases you can take some action, even if it's as little as discussing the issue here which makes it slightly louder which could fix the problem, or deciding that you don't want to use Apple because of it etc.
Personally I keep thinking about decentralized web of trust which could make app stores deprecated or at least create a market of app stores. http://comboy.pl/wot.html - I'm working on a better version and a github repo.
And yes, impact of your actions, unless they are really great, is likely very small, so you can just be completely egoistic and world won't be much different. But this works on all scales. If you are not trying to make people around you happy then you live surrounded by unhappy people. So I guess what I'm suggesting, is that this approach will not make you happy, and I'd like you to be. And while internet stranger words have low value for you, it's an input that may affect later output.
You may not necessarily be optimizing for happiness, but if your utility function is not aligning with the most popular one in this case (people seem to want great work to be well rewarded), it would be nice to give us a glimpse of it, to put your statement in a context which makes sense.
There are also services that'll do everything for you and you just get a PDF when it's done. Usually costs about $50 in addition to the USCO filing fees.
Even as a "nonresident alien" (meaning foreigner) you can use the USCO website and send DMCA takedowns.
But of course, it only works if you send the DMCA to a company that needs to adhere to US law. So it'll work to get Apple or Google to remove the infringing app, but you probably cannot use DMCA to directly pursue the infringers.
First of all nothing is a slam dunk in court.
Second even if you win you still have to collect and that assumes no delays and no appeals and no feet dragging.
Third it's not like you file and the court says 'oh we can fit you in next Tuesday' (sorry for the tone of that btw but I am trying to make a point).
Fourth, go try and actually find a lawyer that is willing to take such a small case. (ie 'up to $350k' is exactly that. Any opponent would settle for vastly less money. If not they just drag things on.).
> Of course, one would hope that Apple will do the right thing, but it's also reasonably easy to force their hand.
Apple also has a motivation to not create a precedent by settling a case that might just insure future cases against them.
Not saying impossible. But all of this assumes even there is a case and not some legal carve out for Apple (or whoever you are suing) or leg to stand on.
And not only should be the developers bitches, they should, according to you, accept and enjoy this dubious "honor".
Right?
There is very little IP protection for software in general.
If the app conforms to the rules, Apple may not be able to determine that it’s a violation of any rule.
Then what?
Apple should inform developers about edge cases of the app store and developers should know about it before they enter the contract.
Apple advertises the benefit of its App Store that thanks to the diligent manual review, such fraud simply has no place there. They also maintain that the fees are high because the review process is top notch and thus expensive.
Now they have to admit that either the walls in their garden are worse than Swiss cheese by letting bad actors in, or that they are complicit in that fraud, because someone had to approve that shit.
Now if I’m just as likely to be screwed over by an Apple-approved app from their walled garden as I am by sideloading random crap, what’s the point in it for me, as a user? If I have to exercise just as much caution, I can just as well sideload what I want.
This is legal liability. That matters.
> Now if I’m just as likely to be screwed over by an Apple-approved app from their walled garden as I am by sideloading random crap, what’s the point in it for me, as a user? If I have to exercise just as much caution, I can just as well sideload what I want.
If this were true, then sure.
But it obviously isn’t.
Even the Google Play store is way worse in terms of risks than the App Store.
On the other hand, the rhetoric Apple's marketing employs all the time suggests the App Store is the Internet Safety Panacea, a risk-free Teletubbyland for everyone. Which is far worse because it entices you to assume it's totally safe and let your guard down.
You are not comparable to “Joe D user” if you know how to protect yourself against these things. He does not.
It actually is safe for most people to let their guard down with Apple’s store. A few counter examples show that it’s a moving target to keep it safe, but nothing more.
The other 70% goes to programming the app, doing design, QA, advertising, customer support. That's a lot to do.
For its 30% Apple only has to validate that the App is as advertised, and isn't trying to cheat you.
If they can't even do that, why do they exist except as a way to steal 30% from everyone off the top?
Edit: Apparently my downvoters can’t think about what really happened here so I’ll explain it.
In App Review this app worked fine. Oh, the keyboard was likely lame and not useful, but the scam screens were no where to be seen. Then the app is approved and placed on the store. Now the scam screens appear.
It’s trivial to do, is done all the time even by legitimate developers, and incredibly hard for Apple review to detect.
For example, if the app reviewer’s touch interaction with an app were recorded and the resulting screens diffed with the same pattern after publishing, there should be no changes.
This is a method used as part of some UI testing with selenium.
There could be apps this does not work for, such as when content changes or conversion type UI is shown.
But I imagine there is some amount of low hanging fruit here. And even that once a “scam” app like this one is reported, Apple should want to review past diffs to look for the example of the violation.
I also agree that for the price, this is what apple should be preventing on behalf honest developers
It is also worth noting that DMCA is embraced ITT whereas with Github’s response to DMCA recently it did not get the same treatment.
There are lots of valid reasons for apps to change based on outside events (location, time, online content). For example apps displaying weather forecast or current news.
This means there's some switch built into the code that changes its behavior, either after a certain date, or on certain known IPs that Apple tests on, or after a certain URL changes value.
At this point, the complaints pour in. People ask for refunds and claim it's not as advertised. The $400 subscription fee has to be mentioned in some complaint.
And at this point, Apple falls flat on its face. It does not investigate any of these serious complaints, which are easily validated.
Apple is one of the most profitable companies in the world. If they can't afford to do the right thing, they shouldn't run this fake "walled garden" app store. If 30% of my app dollar goes to them, an app that doesn't try to steal hundreds of dollars from me is a very very reasonable expectation.
Just because Apple doesn’t immediately remove a scam doesn’t mean they aren’t working to remove it.
Or for some reason if it's a Chinese app Apple will just not bother?
Even if Apple has reviewers download the approved app from the store to double check it hadn’t changed behavior, they can be gamed. Remember the Uber App Review geofencing that went on for years?
If this happens on iOS, what do you think happens on Google play?
Periodically testing apps to see they haven't become a scam.
Apple takes 30% - one dollar in three goes to them, and the remaining 2 has to go to writing and testing software, design, customer support, advertising.
It's ridiculous that so many people think Apple can just take this huge cut and then allow people to be literally robbed by scam apps and just shrug.
Apple should figure out a better automated solution for this specific problem, but it’s ignorant to not acknowledge they already do far more than other app stores.
Google manages all of that with a measly one time $25 developer fee. Clearly $99 of recurring developer charges is the bigger scam here.
It's not unique to Apple of course — Amazon customers could benefit from honest reviews as well.
Does anybody know of a firefox addon or monkeyscript to filter articles on Hackernews? At this point I just want to hide any article with "M1" or "Apple" in it.
You’ll see most people flock to where they can get stuff for free or very little, exactly as it is on the web.
We already see a race to the bottom and massive duplication of apps.
It will only get worse if there are more stores, and then nobody will be in a position to fix it.
Apple should be being pressured to do something about this, but forcing the store open will have the exact opposite effect of what is desired.
But some won't. And if people get used to it, they will go elsewhere for a specific app and leave the scams behind.
At which point Apple will have to do something or their marketplace will devolve into a cesspool and everybody will leave.
People be forced will go to really shitty stores that are way worse than Apple’s one for specific apps, and the overall app market will become much less safe.
Why? Because people establishing new stores will just pay for exclusives.
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/keywatch-watch-keyboard/id1499...
Apparently the paid for 5 stars comments have been deleted, all that's left are comments in the 1 star range but the app is still rated 4.1/5. It's not the first time I see this discrepancy and makes it very hard for a user to understand who to believe: the 1 star comments or the very positive rating average?
Isn't it obvious? Fake reviews will be deleted, but ratings won't be. So disregard the rating and look at the reviews.
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/keywatch-watch-keyboard/id1499...
Also, it won’t show comments in other languages, but probably still does show you their rating in the average.
These are the instances where the 30% commission (or even the recently announced 15% commission for those earning less than $1M in revenue a year) seems like extortion. Apple really needs to step up on app reviews in terms of false positives (banning legitimate apps for frivolous reasons and reinstating them after social media uproar) and false negatives (allowing scam apps and clones to thrive while hurting the original apps).
Hopefully the threats of regulation can’t manifest soon enough for this to get better for the developers and the users. On one side of the equation you have the developers and users for whom the App Store ecosystem is getting toxic. On the other side of the equation you have two parties making a lot of money for low effort — the crooks and Apple. This is not a good look, Tim Apple and Apple.
(I don’t even want to get into how much worse the Play Store is since it’s a digression from the topic)
Also, I understand that the App store has a million apps, and they can't be super thorough with all of them.
What I don't understand is how an app that is actually getting a lot of downloads and reviews, and that charges a huge ammount of money, and that is promoted very up in search, doesn't make it to the top of the "let's really review this" priority list.
And if the "keyboard" was usable for practical purposes then why would the scammer waste the chance to monetize those practical, working features which they sunk their own time developing?
Doing specific feature testing would not be trivial. Your description may say you have the worlds only AI keyboard driven by machine learning. No way the reviewers will be able to test that, so they will accept it at face value.
A few years ago Apple substantially decreased the App Review time, in direct response to developer complaints. It went from a week to a day. Part of the reduction was the use of more automated tools to detect violations. Some of it was adding more resources.
But that means reviewers only have minutes to review each app, not hours. And they are focused on technical rules violations. They aren’t ever going to build a test plan based on marketing claims to verify every single one.
For example, whether or not the app is lying in its description about using AI techniques is irrelevant. Even if it were lying about using AI techniques, it still might be a useful and functional keyboard app. And even if it really did use AI techniques, it still might be a useless impractical app.
> It’s not the reviewers job to decide if you created a “good” keyboard
Don't the app store guidelines say that the app needs to deliver a "great" experience?
> But that means reviewers only have minutes to review each app, not hours.
To me, that eliminates a big part of the value proposition of having a "highly curated" app store.
The far larger amount of scams and malware on Google Play vs the App Store clearly establishes its value proposition.
Even this garden variety scam isn’t likely to bet its makers more than a few hundred bucks before their account is banned.
[Citation needed]
From KeyboardCleanTool’s webpage[1]:
> In 2011 Apple rejected the app for the Mac App Store because apparently it's "not useful", however I often use it to clean my Macbook Keyboard without producing annoying input.
App review does make judgements on the usefulness of apps (and in this case they are wrong, because plenty of people use that app).
On this example, it could have gone like this. They create a simple keypad on the watch, and some subscription screens. The app reviewer verified that there is a keypad on the watch, that the screens language and subscription process is reasonable and approves.
Then when the app appears on the store, now it works entirely differently and all the user sees are the scam screens.
Apps can behave differently based on a flag set in the cloud, that’s only triggered after approval.
They can behave differently based on geofencing areas, such as Cupertino.
As to the point of whether review matters, can you imagine the dreck the store would be filled with without review?
Geofencing seems easy enough to spoof if you're Apple and have internal tools down to the hardware. Not to mention, Apple is global business.
The issue of only working during review is solved by doing a two-pronged approach, testing pre-production and proactively testing the released applications after publication. They obviously have manual ways of revoking apps.
We can ask that Apple do better but don’t forget it already does far more then any other store.
Anecdotally—and this has been true for multiple years—none of the apps I use were discovered via the App Store, I always found them somewhere else. The App Store is already filled with garbage, and searching is both broken[1] and can be manipulated[2].
App review seems to be useless in every single way[3], stops developers from making quick fixes, and arbitrarily stops people from installing apps they may want.
[1]: Last time I tried searching for “pinboard” (a bookmarking service), I had scroll past twenty pinball apps before reaching the first relevant app.
[2]: Apps buying the name of their competitors as search terms for themselves.
[3]: Cant’t even stop malware: https://www.wired.com/story/apple-app-store-malware-click-fr...
> Apps can behave differently based on a flag set in the cloud, that’s only triggered after approval.
But if this do-nothing app _did_ do something in the review phase, then why switch that functionality off afterwards? If you've already gone to the trouble of writing (or stealing) code to do _something,_ at least enough not to be refused entry into the App Store with a "does nothing at all" verdict, then your scam will only be hurt by switching even that minimal functionality off: Users will just quit using it all the faster. You'd use your remote switch to activate the scamming bits, not to de-activate the rest.
So I don't believe that's how this particular app under discussion got through. It can't have actually done anything useful in the review phase either.
Same binary
50 times LESS likely to be infected with malware sounds like good walled-garden gatekeeping to me, even if it's not perfect...
The only real way to use apps stores these days is to have prior knowledge something is legit
From what I've been told, they don't even run the apps during the review ("review").
How about: it's time for freelance developers to unionise? Some organisation (self-regulating to represent only legit developers) that can put pressure on Apple, run PR, help with legal, etc. (Maybe funded by 5% of the 30% -> 15% cut savings).
I'm a little wary of the viability of suing Apple until they comply. I hope that it works, but the cynic in me says it's far more likely to trigger a ToS update than it is any kind of change.
Even with my company I would think long and hard if anything is worth pursuing. The extra time loss required and cost means I would approach legal action in the US only if the amount is huge.
I assume freelance developers are even less willing to deal with this bullshit.
The irony of the whole thing is that this could cue Apple to “sherlock” it, if it wasn’t on their radar already.
And it still has better paying customers than the Play store, and 1/50+ less malware (according to stats), so more customer trust.
Is it perfect? No.
They build the OS and SDK on Mac too, why do they not get a % cut on all apps there too?
Actually when you're in Safari you're using their OS and SDK too why don't they get a % cut of purchases and software there too?
Just interested why one scenario is considered the norm yet these two others that fall under the same justification seem absurd.
Because they chose not to for business/historical reasons. So?
>Actually when you're in Safari you're using their OS and SDK too why don't they get a % cut of purchases and software there too?
Well, technically you're not using their SDK. Just the OS and the browser engine. The SDK is just the JS runtime.
That said, they could. And people could use another platform.
>Just interested why one scenario is considered the norm yet these two others that fall under the same justification seem absurd.
In the end it's a business decision, with historical (e.g. computers didn't have this model in the past, phones/consoles/etc did), market, and other considerations.
In comparison, the so-called "gig economy" is also extremely large, perhaps even larger in total dollars than the App Store, but that doesn't mean individual gig workers are doing well.
Society is very "top heavy", the 1% has most of the wealth too, the popular artists is a power-law distribution, and so on. That's not up to the App Store though.
The current states of the "mainstream" internet just make it way to easy to make money making the cheapest content possible or scam. And the company / individual running those are usually in country that keep them safe from any legal repercussion so they can keep doing it over and over again. While not everything is easily fixable, a lot would be better if Google, Apple, Amazon and co would finally step in and enforce their "quality control", make every app, ads, etc, go through and actual human verification process, but that would hurt there margin and it looks like they have no incentive in doing that. They usually have a monopoly or at least a duopoly, so why would they care about the cesspool that their services have become ? Its not like another company can compete with them.
Want to have a real quality app store ? Its not possible on Apple devices and Google make it as hard as possible. Want to compete with Youtube or Twitch ? Be ready to throw a lot of money to attract customer and creator and still fail (hello Mixer) or become a cesspool either way (hello DailyMotion, rutube, ...).
Sure you can try DMCA take down, copyright infringement lawsuit, ... But it will cost you a lot of time and money, which could have been put in your product, and it will be ultimately useless. By the time the request is processed or the lawsuit takes places, they will have already created 10 more clone, push 100 more scam, and other fun stuff.
[0] Google literally allowed a ad for a "one night stand" app that use a underage girl in ad: https://www.reddit.com/r/france/comments/l9y8rz/ya_til_que_m...
2017 - https://johnnylin.medium.com/how-to-make-80-000-per-month-on...
2016 - https://deepakabbot.medium.com/why-is-apple-allowing-a-scam-...
Apple seem to have accepted this as even they earn a lot and are not taking any action.
Just go to top charts paid apps and you will see maximum of such spammy/scammy apps.
Search any utility keyword (Ex: usd converter, etc.) in App Store and maximum out of top rankers are scammers.
It's cute that they have a report button that doesn't work. You can send a billion reports - they not ones have taken the app down.
DMCA claims go elsewhere, e.g. mailing them a physical letter or going through their separate reporting system for legal violations: https://support.google.com/legal -> https://support.google.com/legal/contact/lr_dmca?product=goo... . And, honestly, I'd still trust physically mailing them over that form - mailed letters start legal time limits for actions in many (many!) cases, online methods rarely have court-tested equivalent protections.
The dream of any free-market economist as the best for the customers!
And even that is problematic, fo you think these scam screens appear for users in Cupertino?
Refers to the 'power' it gives to developers to soar high on a dragon and wield unknown riches and promise for a time.
Then sometime the dragon coughs, and well you get burned to a crisp ... Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, Youtube are all dragons (naming only those).
But I guess these folks have contingencies to create new dev accounts that look unrelated and still come out net positive of the dev account cost quickly.
Any iOS user can get a refund from the App Store, they just have to ask, and the process is pretty much automated.
Unfortunately few know this. I had a template email for unhappy customers that would walk them through it.
Unlock keyboard £14.99 KeyWatch - Watch Keyboard PRO £7.99 KeyWatch - Watch Keyboard VIP £29.49 KeyWatch - Watch Keyboard VIP £2.99 Premium £14.99
That's the IAPs for the scam app. If it wasn't a scam app then £7.99 to unlock all the features might be fine. But £7.99/wk subscription is obviously wildly different, and you wouldn't know that's what's going on from the App Store.
I remember that reinstalling Windows was a regular thing to do to get rid of the garbage.
The number of apps with obscene monthly and yearly charges that snag people is too numerous to count and Apple doesn't even police this aspect
Off the top of my head, I wonder if you couldn't make Apple have to pay a flat fee and all revenue made from the scam to the lawyer proving that this is a scam. That would create a merket for anti-scam lawyers, resulting in quickly hunting down all scammers on the platform.
Good to know thats not true. I still have to be vigilant _and_ accept heavy restrictions.
Not some radar or any other closed system, but public lists of sham & shame.
If we want to get rid of mold we should shine a light on it
Well, that's the thing, isn't it? The app store (any app store) which has a review process and takes a great cut of revenue, should stand for quality and safety. Here, that's clearly not the case.
For another example, see Amazon problems with fake products.
Both Apple and Amazon are large enough and have so much money that you'd think they could spend some of those resources on handling the problem. Perhaps they do, but appears not.
Fuck, if any other company would be able the provide their logistics, I wouldn't drop a dime again with them.
Many App Store customers literally do not know that they can request a refund, or how to request one. App Store does not even have a clear refund policy. You see a lot of reviews for scam apps that say "I want a refund!" They just don't know.
App Store customers assume, naturally but unfortunately mistakenly, that app developers have the power to grant refunds. They have no idea Apple itself is the sole source of refunds. You would think that Apple would put a refund link in the ratings/review area of the store, but nope.
The idea is simply too generic. And it's a feature, not a product.
That's not to say you cannot make money with trivial ideas. It just seems obvious to me that such apps cannot last very long and you have to go with quantity instead of quality in that case.
Hope the he can rectify the situation, and in the worst case, possibly rebrand.
You're suggesting they play a different game because the maker of this game is allowing a cheater to nullify the results of the competitive scene.
Do you see how it might poor form to tell a person trying to be the best in the world at one specific game to simply play a different game?
That's potentially kind of a straw man though. Your suggestion isn't necessarily wrong.
I’ve built an entire business around OS enhancements before, it’s like picking up nickels before a steamroller.
I would think that “1 step” involves accepting a dialog that shows you this will cost $8 a week.
If so, that doesn’t put Apple off the hook (it certainly is a major change from early App Store, when they removed the “I am Rich” app, which was totally honest in what functionality it provided (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Rich)), but does move some blame to the user.
As I said, it doesn’t put Apple off the hook. Even if they think selling such apps is a good idea, I think that, for subscriptions, Apple should mention price per year, too (I guess they don’t, but am not willing to try with such an app). That might prevent many users who scan the dialog, see “$8”, find that reasonable for buying a feature, and click “subscribe” from clicking on that button.