Oh my god, they don't even bother implementing the app any more...<p>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).<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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)
FYI, in situations like this the best way is to:<p>1. Register your videos and images with the USCO. It'll cost <$100.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>Of course, one would hope that Apple will do the right thing, but it's also reasonably easy to force their hand.<p>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.
I never understood the App Store rating figures. Here's the scam app:<p><a href="https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/keywatch-watch-keyboard/id1499067567" rel="nofollow">https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/keywatch-watch-keyboard/id1499...</a><p>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?
A scammy subscription of $400+ a year?! And this gets to the top of the charts because Apple makes more money from it!<p>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).<p>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.<p>(I don’t even want to get into how much worse the Play Store is since it’s a digression from the topic)
An app that does nothing passed review? I hope this doesn't happen often, and that the processes are reviewed. May be reviewers have too much work to do and just click OK sometimes to move on?<p>Also, I understand that the App store has a million apps, and they can't be super thorough with all of them.<p>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.
It's funny that these scam apps and fake reviews can exist in the app store en masse, while everyone on forums like this one will praise Apple for every heavy-handed decision against legitimate apps (which coincidentally were all in Apple's own interests) because hey the walled garden keeps us safe.
I think it's time for freelance developers to behave like companies. Write big tech support once, wait a week and if the issue isn't solved, contact a lawyer and let them handle it. Otherwise you will be eternally bouncing around customer support departments until you write a tweet in the hope of getting noticed by somebody afraid of a PR disaster.
If you own an Apple Watch, FlickType is a must have. It only works with Messages due to the Apple APIs, but he wasn’t kidding when he said near-iPhone typing speeds.<p>The irony of the whole thing is that this could cue Apple to “sherlock” it, if it wasn’t on their radar already.
Remember that you pay a 30% fee because they need the money to maintain their infra and to offer a good platform for users to find your app(s). /s
This is a problem that poison every platform these days. Apple Store and Play Store are full of borderline or outright scam apps. Google and Facebook keep pushing literal scam or porn-baiting advertisement[0]. Every search engine is poisoned by those shitty top-X, article spamming, fake news website making searching for an answer to some question a real chore. Amazon is full of fake product and scam. Even Steam is now spammed with shitty game that are sometimes not even playable ...<p>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.<p>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, ...).<p>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.<p>[0] Google literally allowed a ad for a "one night stand" app that use a underage girl in ad: <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/france/comments/l9y8rz/ya_til_que_moi_qui_est_d%C3%A9rang%C3%A9_par_le_fait_que/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/france/comments/l9y8rz/ya_til_que_m...</a>
So many people have reported this in past:<p>2017 - <a href="https://johnnylin.medium.com/how-to-make-80-000-per-month-on-the-apple-app-store-bdb943862e88" rel="nofollow">https://johnnylin.medium.com/how-to-make-80-000-per-month-on...</a><p>2016 - <a href="https://deepakabbot.medium.com/why-is-apple-allowing-a-scam-in-its-app-store-thousands-of-users-are-losing-money-453476d2d161" rel="nofollow">https://deepakabbot.medium.com/why-is-apple-allowing-a-scam-...</a><p>Apple seem to have accepted this as even they earn a lot and are not taking any action.<p>Just go to top charts paid apps and you will see maximum of such spammy/scammy apps.<p>Search any utility keyword (Ex: usd converter, etc.) in App Store and maximum out of top rankers are scammers.
Google does exactly the same. My apps have been cloned or copied many times, with my exact icon or screenshots.<p>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.
Apple seems to be far more concerned with getting their (30/15) percent cut than with how that revenue was generated. The App Store is full of such examples. As long as you pay the baron his share and don’t upset him with unwelcome thoughts (Parler) or worldly desires (erotica), you are free to reign.
I've heard it called : dancing with the dragon.<p>Refers to the 'power' it gives to developers to soar high on a dragon and wield unknown riches and promise for a time.<p>Then sometime the dragon coughs, and well you get burned to a crisp ... Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, Youtube are all dragons (naming only those).
The IOS app store being full of garbage is why I can't believe people try to use the "A monopoly store is better because it improves the user experience" angle. To me its worse.
What is the worst those scammers have to fear? Having their app banned from the App store? If so, this sounds like a very unethical, but amost risk free business model.
I had one misaligned UI element And it was rejected. What are apple up to?? Do some reviewers just not care?? And neither does apple about bad reviewers.
One of the many problems here is that the IAP section in the App Store doesn't seem to support subscriptions at all.<p>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<p>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.
This might be "old man shaking fist at clouds", but was crapware this bad before centralized app stores? I know it was out there - most famously stuffed into SourceForge downloads - but it didn't seem to be as prevalent. Though perhaps it's more a reflection of increased ROI from doing things like this in 2021 vs 2001.
So then the only recourse is for you to produce 10 cloned apps of YOUR own app-each w a different color, font, and language. Well maybe a hundred clones? each for a different geographical location? Since you own all of them, you would swamp out any competition.
Really wish Apple would limit unlocks to no more than the App cost in the store. As in, if the developer wants to sell you $39 dollars of features, game play items, or such, after you obtain the app they are limited per year to the cost of the app from the initial purchase off the store.<p>The number of apps with obscene monthly and yearly charges that snag people is too numerous to count and Apple doesn't even police this aspect
I'm late to the party. But this seems to be a policy problem, no? There needs to be a real incentive for Apple and other platforms to prevent this scams.<p>Off the top of my head, I wonder if you couldn't make Apple have to pay a flat fee and all revenue made from the scam to the lawyer proving that this is a scam. That would create a merket for anti-scam lawyers, resulting in quickly hunting down all scammers on the platform.
Oh so i cant actually trust the walles garden apple has curated. Everyone told me that locking my device to the curated app store is for my own safety. Let Apple select the software you can run so that youre safe from scams.<p>Good to know thats not true. I still have to be vigilant _and_ accept heavy restrictions.
OT: Most (including me) confuse good products with good business models. Only because a product has killer potential doesn't mean it's based on a good business model and checks all boxes such as defensibility, distribution, lock-ins, dependencies, etc.
Lol they having million of reviews rating on app which cost 400$ a year which is $$$ for Apple (they get 30% of that). But Apple wont pay someone for looking through these apps and assure the app at least do something similar to what is advertised.
I have a very strong opinion, that the only way to fix this problem systemically is to have an open system, at least in part.<p>Not some radar or any other closed system, but public lists of sham & shame.<p>If we want to get rid of mold we should shine a light on it
It’s easy to blame Apple here and to some degree they are responsible for scammers aren’t banned from the App Store. However, why isn’t somebody complaining who got scammed? Don’t they want $400 back? Maybe they do a simple refund and that’s enough for them but there should be some feedback loop to detect scams quickly before they climb the App Store charts.
This guy's business was doomed from the start in more than one way. E.g. nothing would stop Apple from copying the idea in the next version of the watch.<p>The idea is simply too generic. And it's a feature, not a product.
Making a keyboard that has the selling point of "being good on the Apple Watch" seems like a fragile business model to begin with, when Apple's goal should be implementing the best possible keyboard. This has struck custom keyboard vendors in the past(e.g. Gboard stealing basically all custom keyboard market share by implementing stand-out features). Please correct me if I'm missing something.<p>Hope the he can rectify the situation, and in the worst case, possibly rebrand.
“Tap to "unlock", and you're now 1 step away from confirming a $416/year subscription.”<p>I would think that “1 step” involves accepting a dialog that shows you this will cost $8 a week.<p>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 (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Rich" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Rich</a>)), but does move some blame to the user.<p>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 <i>buying</i> a feature, and click “subscribe” from clicking on that button.