Developers Complain as App Store Feature Promotes Rip-Off Apps

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/developers-complain-as-app-store-feature-promotes-rip-off-apps.2306605/

by taxyovio • 5 years ago

93 26 5 years ago

forums.macrumors.com

Play Store also are plagued with this issue for years. There are reports and news about this for years and years. It is not surprisingly that App Store also plagued with this issue.

I recalled a news last year that a dev is SOL because someone in China registered the trademark of dev's work and use that trademark to force Google to suspend/ban the original dev without any recourse.

Fraudulent Trademark and patent trolls uses this method every chance they get and there is usually nothing that the original devs can do.

interpol_p6• 5 years ago

I posted the second tweet in the article which dives into one of the apps (note that nearly all the apps featured by Apple were subscription scams of a similar nature, one was non-functional, and the last one sold "coin packs" — probably the most benign of the bunch)

My main complaint is that the App Store allows developers to sell subscriptions which feature free trials that automatically convert into paid subscriptions

This system of automatically rolling-over a trial into a subscription provides zero benefit to the user. This only benefits developers who want to see extra revenue from people who forget to cancel their subscriptions prior to the trial ending

I have no idea why Apple does not prompt the user to purchase the subscription when they attempt to launch the app after the trial period. It would help a ton of people, it would prevent scam apps like this, it would drive trust in subscriptions as a business model for apps, it would help legitimate developers, and it would be good business for the App Store in the long term

There is no business sense to enabling the current trial mechanism, nor is there any benefit to users

leppr2• 5 years ago

There is no business sense to enabling the current trial mechanism

Apple doesn't take their 30% cut on subscriptions?

interpol_p6• 5 years ago

Why throw away the user trust they have earned in the App Store for the short-term profit of subscription scams?

There's no business sense there

The trust they have in their brand is worth far more. And they are allowing it to erode by featuring scam apps and by providing a subscription mechanism which is easy to abuse

pipthepixie• 5 years ago

There is a paradox with app stores in that they play the gatekeeper and can arbitrarily not allow certain apps, remove them, or enforce certain rules on what types of apps are allowed, but then also permit all sorts of shenanigans such as this.

The developers of these types of apps are just pushing the envelope of what's allowed until they're called out and formal complaints are made to the app store gatekeepers.

The malicious & overly expensive apps should get taken down swiftly, but are allowed to linger for months on end, generating large profits.

Whilst app stores are policed, there exists a lot of room for exploitative apps. I imagine these app store gatekeepers are trying to keep a balance, but app stores seem heavily swayed in favor of scams, and malicious or overly expensive apps.

nodejs_rulez_12• 5 years ago

Like any unregulated capitalism they will do everything to maximise profit. They get profit regardless of whether the original or the copy is being purchased. They get profit if a user gets scammed through in-app purchases.

john_moscow• 5 years ago

Only because they are monopolies for the corresponding platforms. If customers could choose between smaller stores using different moderation strategies, the forces of competition would have found an optimal solution very fast.

pieno• 5 years ago

I really don’t think Apple is consciously allowing these apps because they get profit either way. They’re very well aware that the long term success and profits of the App Store and the Apple ecosystem are based on users’ trust and frictionless experiences. In fact, Apple guidelines stressed pretty early on in the app store’s life (2010) that “we don’t need any more fart apps” in the App Store. I really don’t believe that they would risk their brand and image being affected by a very short-term focus on 30% commission on some scammy apps.

Also, more generally, even if this was conscious behaviour by Apple, I don’t think this really linked to “unregulated capitalism”. In any economic/political system you will find that some people serve their own interests while harming others or the public interest. Whether those “own interests” are amassing money, assets, power, access to goods/services or anything else deemed “valuable” in that system does not chance the dynamics of that basic conflict of interests which will cause trouble in any system. I’m afraid that’s human nature and there’s no system that can fully align those interests or avoid the negative effects of conflicts of interest.

jollybean• 5 years ago

It's not a paradox, just a monopoly or de-facto that.

Platforms should be required to allow users to set an alternative default app store, much like browser etc..

jasonlotito• 5 years ago

This is yet another case of it being hard to take seriously Apple's curated store. Especially with the way the trial period works in Apple's system. It's a horrible system that operates on dark patterns.

villgax• 5 years ago

Google Play Store has been littered with WHiteHatJr students who "somehow" built their own android apps & paid developer fees, yet publish dead google doc links as privacy policy & link back to the same top level domain of whitehatJr coding classes....such a travesty in the name of getting kids between 6-15 into coding by putting FOMO into their parents.

ksaj• 5 years ago

You should search their Common Lisp apps. There are about 10 apps that are all the same online tutorial website turned into a pager app, and a bunch more that aren't far off from that.

Thankfully there actually is a Lisp REPL. But you have to scroll like mad to find it.

cpeterso• 5 years ago

Here's a similar story from someone trying to find the Roomba app in the iOS App Store. The top search result is a sponsored ad for a scammy subscription app pretending to be the Roomba app. That Roomba's legitimate app is called simply "iRobot Home" and doesn't include the actual word "Roomba" or mention vacuums doesn't help!

https://twitter.com/simonw/status/1422992070722023427

dehrmann• 5 years ago

Paid app store promotions border on racketeering. I just searched for "zoom" on my iPhone. Top result is the "YouStar" voice chat app. Google does this, too. It's essentially saying "you wouldn't want someone looking for your app to find your competitor, would you?" It's essentially a protection racket.

rchaud• 5 years ago

I thought the $99 annual fee and cut of all transactions were necessary to 'maintain' the App Store. Seems like these scam apps are showing up as Featured, rather than just appearing as search ads.

TheMightyLlama• 5 years ago

It makes good business sense. As a platform you want to maximise the number of purchases an individual user makes. They might have found out that the average user will buy one or two of the inferior versions before finally buying the original...

MiddleEndian• 5 years ago

Search engines, Google or otherwise, tend to give you the right results when you search for an application. App stores are garbage.

Developers Complain as App Store Feature Promotes Rip-Off Apps

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