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Comment by blibble | Hacker News Reader

I don't think I've ever searched for something on the app store and not got a scam as the first result

just tried it

    - my bank? I get crypto.com
    - train company app? knockoff app that charges extra fees
    - my broker? CFD gambling app
    - official government app for paying my tax? intuit product

I dare to think how many people this lures in

scammy ads plastered everywhere is what I'd expect from Google products

not for the Apple equivalent that commands a significant price premium

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> scammy ads plastered everywhere is what I'd expect from Google products

This won’t fit with the manufactured popular understanding, but at the current time, Google protects you from fraud and scam better than anyone.

I have been unfortunate enough to be scammed recently from a bing search result (ad). (It was a new computer and I decided to use Edge and bing was the default search).

Apple, Microsoft etc. are rookies in this game. Google just has the benefit of experience and hence is much safer now than anyone can ever become in the near future. Because of this, scammers are much more likely to target other platforms… which happen to be Apple, Bing, Facebook etc.

This is true. Btw, the macOS app store is also full of products that you really shouldn't use and most of software you really should use have alternate ways that you buy them going through their website and get something so that you can install. Microsoft Office, JetBrains IDEs and Adobe products all will install and update without you having to go through the macOS Appstore.

Doesn't Apples current dispute with the EU hinge on the argument by Apple that keeping their App Store locked down protects customers from scams?

I don't remember, but the macOS apps distributed without the Appstore also require all the Apple dev dance of signing, notarization and paid developer account and all...

> Google protects you from fraud and scam better than anyone

I have to disagree. Czech Youtube is currently full of scam ads with photos (and sometimes even bad deepfakes) of Czech president and other public figures, supposedly endorsing some investment product that yields you like 50% profit. I keep reporting these, and I know some people who do too, but ~80% of those reports get handled as "we determined no violation of our rules".

where can I see one of these fakes ?

How related is a youtube video in Czech showing up in your preferred videos with Apple store's first search being a scam

I was replying to the claim that Google is good at protecting from scams.

Also, it's not in my "preferred videos", they are paid ads, and they appear to many people, maybe it wasn't so clear from my comment

Google is also kind of shit at this. To be safer, it's advised to block web ads so that the sometimes scammy first result is hidden in the search results.

I almost got drained today by accidentally connecting my wallet to the first sponsored Google result for 1inch. Maybe not that good?

On the contrary, as someone who has worked with both platforms as a developer, this is my personal opinion:

- Around a lot of things software, including the Play Store, Google’s safety and security, for all its ads, tracking and shenanigans, are real, largely verifiable, discussed openly, and pretty fucking robust (not to mention, most of it are actually open).

- Apple’s? Smoke and mirrors! Essentially some vague shit which often ludicrously boils down to Safest Shit Ever On an iPhone™ (and doesn’t go further than that) and never discussed or even offered a glimpse of.

Hilarious. I don't think i have never seen or gotten a scam app (not including games, which I don't use) as the top result on Google Play.

In fact, I just used all your searches on Google play and got

- my bank

- the train company app

- my broker

- hmrc

The next 4 or 5 in each case were also legit. Maybe this is really something to be aware of if switching to apple? Certainly would not have been something I would have been expecting from apple (though I am pretty careful about vetting apps).

I think the poster here meant an ad over the search results rather than the actual first result. The ads have a different highlight and a badge that says "ad" ... I just tried the same categories and all of the top results were the official app. The next few were mostly apps from the same developer as well. I don't know that I would call ads that are clearly labeled as ads a "scam" even if they are unwanted

I am still surprised that when I search for a specific app (as you did for your bank) I still see junk ads before the real app shows up. Apple should be better than that. They seem to have the same bad incentive Google search does.

What is CFD gambling? When I read “CFD” I always think of computational fluid dynamics and so “CFD gambling” sounds pretty cool to me. Obviously I do know I’m just overfitting to a TLA and I’d like to know what it actually means.

Probably “contract for difference”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_for_difference

contract for difference

in this case: extremely short term highly leveraged bets

This guy's the least risk adverse trader on the Internet! (I know, probably not, but it's funnier this way)

I regressively searched for the app advertised in the previous search. At around depth twelve, a search for “four” gave both an ad and top result of an app named “Four”.

If you’re curious, Four’s description is “Shop Now, Pay Later.”

> Apple should be better than that.

Everyone should be better than that, but as far as Apple specifically, they're really no better than any other hypermegacorp. Apple's a company, it doesn't give a damn about you, it only gives a damn about enriching its owners.

It really does undermine the legitimacy of their claims that they should be the only source of apps, for safety reasons, of course. That reason alone is why they "should be better"; It would serve to legitimize their dogma.

Yeah, I consider it short sighted.

Apple built up a really strong brand by not doing this kind of thing for a while. They get to charge twice as much money for half as much performance because they made sure their products felt nice and intuitive to use. Now they’re willing to destroy the most valuable brand in the world to make crypto money? It makes absolutely no sense, even accounting for greed.

Also, I’m sure this kind of thing hurts their prospects in antitrust cases (like in the EU)

> Apple … get to charge twice as much money for half as much performance…

Has this ever really been the case?

Maybe I should say half as much hardware. Performance is too subjective. But nobody else can charge $800 for an extra 64g of ram. My point is their thoughtfulness about their ecosystem is what allows them to de-commodify their hardware. There’s a price for RAM, and a price for RAM in an Apple computer.

I don't know the current status, but iOS's design meant apps at least used to be _far_ more efficient than the equivalent Android, and thus Apple could ship lower end hardware to deliver the same or better performance to the end user. The was a measurable fact, thus objective.

The same is still somewhat true for macOS where for the average web browsing user, macOS + Safari needs less memory than you would need on Windows. This is also a fact, but it doesn't help power users.

In hindsight, this is quite obvious. Coming from years of using Google Pixels I just got used to trusting the search results. I've never hit a fraudulent app when searching in the Play Store. I trusted apple that at least the top 5 results would be legit. EDIT: added the word 'top' at the end

When I first got an iPhone a few years back, this is the thing that shocked me most. This is completely out of line with what I expect from Apple. I don’t have "scams" per se, but the first result when searching for a keyword is systematically an ad for a competitor:

- Spotify -> Deezer

- Uber -> Heetch

- UberEats -> Deliveroo

- Deliveroo -> Ubereats

- My bank -> crypto.com

I have no idea why Apple allows buying trademarks/full app names as an ad keyword. Perfect matches should always have the app first, not an ad.

Is there something in the AppStore rules that prevent apps from buying the keyword ad for their own app?

> I have no idea why Apple allows buying trademarks/full app names as an ad keyword.

Because unlike a regular search query, app store searches tend to be for app names, which are unique. Advertisers won't be interested unless bidding on brand names were allowed.

Especially given they use enhanced security as an excuse so often

Special mention, the f***ton of Whatsapp clients on the iPad when Whatsapp didn't have any releases for the iPadOS up until last September.

This has been a very noticeable problem to me for some time.

I won't search the App Store anymore. I go to the web site for the app I want and get the App Store link that way.

I wish the App Store listings would specify the domain of the entity they come from in plain text, backed by a validation method similar to what we do for TLS certs.

Can you share some search terms you tried? I never had this problem, but I’m also not in the US so it might be different here

Pretty much every brand or app I search for finds a competitor first. Searching for "robinhood" turns up an unaffiliated cryptocurrency app and "macrofactor" turns up a competing diet app, etc. App store search has been broken for at least a few years.

Do you mean ads or organic results?

Apple should remove App Store search ads altogether (I'm sure they won't). By definition they won't give you the app you searched for, because the keyword will be bought by a competitor or even a scam.

If Apple is making money from showing incorrect search results, isn’t that worse?

What if you're searching for "bank" or "flashlight" or "map"?

> "Pretty much every brand or app I search for finds a competitor first."

You're going to hate Amazon.com.

Amazon is known to be a flea market though. Apple is supposed to be the Nordstrom of this sector.

Do you mean the ad at the top? For me, the first result is always an ad which is mostly not the right result, and the second entry (the first actual result) is the right app.

I don't recognize this picture at all. Even if you aren't distinguishing between ads and search results I'm not seeing scams as adverts but there may be a difference between the UK and US app stores in this respect perhaps.

For me on apple UK app store:

my bank - Ad: another legit bank. First result: my bank

Train company - Ad: a generic legit train booking app. First result: the train company

My broker - Ad: another broker. First result: my broker

Official government app for paying my tax - ad: a general tax app. First result: government app.

It stands to reason that they won't show an ad for the thing you're searching when it's the first organic result so I don't find this surprising.

[1] I have two and tried both. Results were the same with a different legit bank as the ad each time.

At what point do we recognize marketing as a sociological disease?

The point where we admit that HN is the patient.

A longtime HN commenter just switched to iOS? Seriously?

Do you mean the search result or the ad that pops in at the first space? For me all those have good results but all contain ads for more or less unrelated apps

I would also expect products with premium pricing to not contain ads.

> my broker? CFD gambling app

I don't think 'gambling app' is a fair description given it's a regulated security, any broker that truly offers CFD trading is (1) going to be legit; (2) going to be competing with the broker you were searching for for result space.

Of course to serve its users any app store should massively prioritise the word/brand (incl. typos) you actually search for though.

Casino gambling is also regulated, there being some degree of oversight doesn't make it not gambling.

Sure. This is a financial instrument used by industry professionals though, not just an 'app'.

You can (and some people do) call buying shares 'gambling' too, at some point it just comes down to what our definitions are and it's not very interesting.

There are professional gamblers (pro poker?). I think I understand the spirit of what you're trying to say, but CFDs are absolutely a gamble, like most investing. It just doesn't have the same stink of "casino gambling," it's a fresh cut, cologne wearing, suited up form of gambling.

> absolutely a gamble, like most investing

Yeah well like I said, definitions. If most investing is gambling then sure, I just don't find that useful.

Anyway the initial comment I was responding to was 'looking for my broker but got CFDs'; my point was they got a different broker. It's still a bad search result, but it's not a weird scam, it's just a competitor. It's not the same as looking for my bank but got crypto exchange at all.

gambling (noun): the practice or activity of betting : the practice of risking money or other stakes in a game or bet

This is the actual dictionary definition of how I would describe investing to someone who'd never heard of it. Investing money is gambling. It's not a bad word or something to be ashamed of, and I'm not trying to be a pedant (I say as I type a long comment starting with a dictionary definition), I just think it's important to recognize & remember at all times so you don't lose everything.

I get what you mean about the broker app. App store searches are bullshit.

> any broker that truly offers CFD trading is (1) going to be legit;

Er, no. "Contracts for Difference" are the new binary options.

https://www.fca.org.uk/publications/policy-statements/ps19-1...

They're in the category that, while they theoretically can be used by skilled investors, anyone offering them to retail punters is up to no good. Because those punters are going to lose money to them hand over fist.

I'm not sure if you're writing from the UK or US, but while the latter has a more stringent 'Accredited Investor' qualification (skilled or wealthy, applied and granted) - and actually flat out doesn't allow CFDs anyway (options are much more common & are retail available) - in the UK this just amounts to a KYC type form where you tick that you understand the risks; they also have to tell you (I assume, because they all do) the percentage of customers that lose money trading them on that platform (typically ~75% from what I've seen).

But they're not 'up to no good', you may not like it, but this is allowed and fully above board. If you search 'HL' and get 'Trading212: shares & CFDs' that's a bad search result, but it's not a scam, they genuinely and legitimately offer that, and compete with HL (which doesn't offer CFDs except through some kind of tie-up with IG).

> I don't think I've ever searched for something on the app store and not got a scam as the first result

It’s cool to crap on Apple and all these days but this is all categorically false. What you are referring to is the Ad on the top of the page. It’s clearly labeled as ad and has a light blue box around the whole ad.

I tried all those things you mentioned and the first result after the clearly labeled ad is what I searched for.

Then what are the ads for? How do they benefit users?

TFA is talking about a literal scam, where his money vanished.

> - my bank? I get crypto.com

Although crypto.com is not a bank, they seem like a legit business and not a scam. Many people are using crypto.com: I know one person who has one such card and I asked a waiter if he had already seen cards like that (waiters gets to see many credit/debit cards a day) and he answered me that they weren't that uncommon.

> - official government app for paying my tax? intuit product

They may be using shady tactics but they are not a scam.

crypto.com 1) is cryptocurrency bs and 2) buys ads on keywodrs which leads them to appear on searches for specific banks, smells like a scam to me

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