Apple has just engineered the worst possible situation for themselves by being the <i>only</i> way to get apps on the store and by simultaneously incessantly marketing the store as "Safe and Secure". The former encourages them to maximize the number of apps on the store, while the latter encourages them to shoot first and ask questions later.<p>If side-loading or alternative ways of getting apps onto the iPhone existed, then they could implement far stricter controls knowing that, worst case scenario, you <i>can</i> still get an app onto the iPhone. This is how it works on the Mac. Tor isn't on the Mac App Store, but that of course doesn't mean Tor can't be used on the Mac.<p>This is one of the tricky parts about AppStore discussions, it's not about being for or against the AppStore. In fact, I wish the AppStore was <i>MUCH pickier</i> about the apps it let in, and I also wish there was an alternative to the AppStore to catch cases that didn't meet that strict bar. Then the AppStore could <i>actually</i> be about curation as opposed to fear-induced isolationism. Then Apple wouldn't have to inadvertently have political side-effects when it disallowed apps like HKMap.live.<p>Being on the AppStore could still be advantageous beyond just "either that or you don't get to be on the iPhone at all.” Apple payment processing, iCloud integrations, Family-sharing, etc. could all be tied to being ON the AppStore, so there'd still be a huge incentive to try to ship that way. And side-loading doesn't have to be easy or even on by default.
I got scammed on the App Store a couple of weeks ago.<p>I needed the SmartThings app for some Samsung home automation devices, searched for it, and installed this one:<p><a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/smart-things-smart-view-app/id1538696472" rel="nofollow">https://apps.apple.com/us/app/smart-things-smart-view-app/id...</a><p>When it charged me a $20/year subscription (now cancelled) I thought "Wow, Samsung charging me for this feels pretty cheap of them, but I guess that's how they do things - after all, I found this on the App Store".<p>The app I should have installed was this one: <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/smartthings/id1222822904" rel="nofollow">https://apps.apple.com/us/app/smartthings/id1222822904</a>
Patrick McGee from Financial Times had a whole twitter thread [1] on it. It got everything from banning apps for competitive reason to Apple's FEAR ( Fraud Engineering Algorithms and Risk ) team saying the current App Store review process is inadequate.<p>I am starting to think there is a much deeper problem with Apple, it is that without Steve Jobs, no one is being the yard stick of quality, especially in UX.<p>A decade of App Store, you are wondering if they have actually put any effort in its Apps Search Engine. It took them 3 <i>years</i> to admit they have problem with Keyboard and offering an update after <i>5 years</i>. For things that are easily quantify, like Sales, Hardware Performance ( Apple Silicon ), Logistics and Operation. They are absolutely excelling under Tim Cook. For everything else it seems they are loose, at least from an Apple Standard point of view, although that is still far higher than their competitors.<p>To quote Steve, it seems people are too focused on the process, and forgot about the content.<p>[1] <a href="https://twitter.com/PatrickMcGee_/status/1380194940236353536" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/PatrickMcGee_/status/1380194940236353536</a>
The assertion in that title is patently false click-bait.<p>Apple definitely cares about its customers being driven away from them.<p>That doesn't mean they've caught all scams, or more importantly in this case have managed to automate detection of them all, definitely not as fast as folks online identify them.<p>Also note that there are entire classes of scams that never get click baity titles because Apple DOES detect them and shut them down before they're widespread.<p>(I worked at Apple in engineering, left after many years for compelling genomics, and that's the basis for my assertion.)
The scam really is about the iOS Subscriptions and how its easy to have a free trial then auto-bill you for some absurd amount. Very easy to trick people into doing this.<p>Apple should just remove Subscriptions completely and have app developers turn them into consumable IAPs that you have to buy every X months.<p>The app developer can still do a free trial in their own code.<p>Games do this all the time with "premium". You buy 30 days of Premium for $5. 30 days later its done and you have to buy it again. No auto-recurring subscriptions.
This and the right to repair areas are where I’d like to see Apple forced to do a lot better through laws (since it has not done as much as would be expected from a company of this size and profits). Apple cannot claim that the App Store being the only source of apps and in-app payments (without allowing side loading or allowing app makers to even mention other payment options) is the safest option while not doing enough on scams. You don’t need machine learning or AI to catch many of these scams.<p>That the developer of FlickType (the OP of this Twitter thread) had to file a lawsuit says a lot about how much Apple isn’t paying attention. I seriously wonder what the person at the top level managing the App Store is doing, other than lobbying to prevent any possibility of alternate payment options or allowing side loading of apps.
Apple and Google are poor stewards of the mobile app distribution market. It's time that their 13+ year stranglehold on app distribution is disrupted.
So it's not just a scam, it's a scam pretending to be a medical app? The walled garden method has been proven a failure and needs to go urgently.
How does Apple even solve this problem?<p>On one hand, they're already having trouble with legitimate developers getting apps on the store (or at least they used to). On the other hand, there are tons of low-quality and scam apps.<p>I agree with common sentiment here that people should be able to install apps from wherever they want. But a curated "App Store" for most people is a good idea. Otherwise your entire system's reputation becomes worse because people install low quality apps and possibly even malware, and it's hard to find good and legitimate apps.<p>Except that's still happening with the current App Store. And I honestly think Apple is trying to do better curation, but it's a hard problem because there are so many apps and you don't want to reject any legitimate ones.
As an iOS and MacOS Developer myself, this doesn’t surprise me but it still infuriates me. Over the years, I have realized that the app review is extremely inconsistent and also the rules are applied differently to different developers. While I have no proof of whether Apple is allowing this simply because it’s a high grossing app, I do know that Apple treats the big company apps like Facebook, Uber, Twitter and Reddit differently.<p>The update logs are a perfect example. I have had updates rejected (rightfully) because my update logs were too vague and there’s a rule against vague useless update logs.<p>But the same standard never applies to FB, Twitter etc. FB’s update logs are always vague and two lines of “We update the app often to fix bugs and improve features.” Even when they are using updates to lets say remove features or add features.<p>People often try to excuse this by saying “big companies have too many A-B tests etc. But that makes it worse. A big company should be held to an even higher standard than the ordinary pleb developer like me.<p>Another example is when Apple gave special privileges to Uber’s app:<p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/apple-gave-ubers-app-unprecedented-access-to-a-secret-backdoor-that-can-record-iphone-screens/articleshow/60963865.cms" rel="nofollow">https://www.businessinsider.in/apple-gave-ubers-app-unpreced...</a><p>It’s a BIG CLUB and you and I ain’t in it.
I doubt Apple is "incentivized" to allow this as the poster claims. Clearly it makes them look awful.<p>Apple is the only company who's been able to convince users to pay for client-side software. Android is mostly full of "free" ad-supported apps. Prior to smart phones, users generally could not be relied upon to buy software. Now, you need to break your banking apps if you want to side-load anything, and it's just easier to buy apps. This has greatly contributed to investment in software development IMO. I do want more freedom to develop on iOS and I also understand why they have limitations. It's because they don't want scam-apps to reach customers.
Remember, the App Store offers you the most secure, curated, and safe experience you can ever have with your Apple devices.<p>Each app submitted to the App Store undergoes a thorough review process. Each app update is checked and approved by an Apple employee. It's not like some automated process which you can game left and right. Each app on the App Store is guaranteed, thanks to the strict review process, to adhere to a minimum standard of quality which is higher than competing app markets are offering.<p>You can trust Apple's judgement on the content that is published on the App Store.
There has to be another step here that we're missing - such as malware that buys apps for you or subscribes to apps without your knowledge, or uses the App Store to launder money.<p>I can't see a scam app being a top grosser without something like that.
link goes to a different thread discussing the removal of fake reviews. Looks like Apple is in the process of taking action against this.<p>Original thread, which explains the scam, is here: <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/keleftheriou/status/1381463196280610816" rel="nofollow">https://mobile.twitter.com/keleftheriou/status/1381463196280...</a>
Meanwhile they are regularly rejecting updates for legitimate, established apps, because the given reviewer didn’t like the way the pricing page was worded. It doesn’t matter that the same copy was used for the last 10 versions of the app, you must change it and re-submit for review :^)
For a company that spent $6+ billion on a new campus, you'd think they could use even 1/60th of that to implement appropriate controls, especially when they're claiming it's "safe" and that's why it must be the only appstore on iOS.
Every time something like this happens people seem to be shocked and surprised, but his happens day in day out with every single large entity (companies, government, criminal gangs) as long as they large enough and have enough power to get away with whatever they are doing.<p>If Apple can make 1-2M/yr from a scam and lawyers tied all loose ends they will have no problem doing that. Worst case will push some press release statement blaming third party and that will be it.
The App Store quality is so low now that I avoid it completely. It reminds me of a dollar store just browsing through it. All the developers, like sellers of products at a dollar store, have learned to optimize for “the packaging” of the app.<p>The goal isn’t to get some meaningful money per customer but to make a single sale, usually only a few dollars. So the goal is to trick the user, optimize for large volumes of unit sales and reduce the cost per sale to as minimal as possible.<p>I think it’s time that there be competing App Stores on iOS because Apple has completely dropped the ball with their brain-dead approach to quality and developer incentives. Whoever runs the App Store at Apple should be replaced, but that’s not going to happen until there is real competition so the numbers reflect the true state of things.<p>Getting someone to part with $20 is harder than $1. I think the race to the bottom with software distribution has had a negative effect on overall quality. I’d rather have a few moderately priced options to choose from than 100 equally cheap options.
I wonder what solutions to scams on the App Store might be? I can think of some:<p>1. Do nothing more. It doesn’t seem to be going <i>too</i> badly for Apple<p>2. Have stricter review and allow sideloading. Obviously this is popular on HN but it seems to me that Apple would not do this and it doesn’t obviously help. Maybe users would just be trained to sideload (I vaguely recall that there was a time when many apps in mainland China were not in the App Store and had to be sideloaded. There would be well-written instructions for how to install them)<p>3. Be stricter at review. Maybe this is expensive (so Apple would have to increase fees or reduce profits). It might also not be good for Apple if fewer amateurs can release apps. But maybe that isn’t so significant and Apple make most of their money from bigger players.<p>4. Make it harder to profit from these scams. Maybe hold user payments in escrow for a while and look for evidence of scams—users quickly cancelling, leaving 1-star reviews, etc—and only pay later. To some extent this is “more scrutiny” so maybe this is just a way to make it targeted. Maybe this would still have the problem of hurting small players, and maybe most money lost to scams goes to small apps rather than “popular” ones like the one in the thread, so this flagging wouldn’t catch them.<p>5. Have a two-tier App Store with a section of “high quality” apps and a section of less-reviewed apps. Apple already does this to some extent with “editors” of the store, various articles about apps, and plenty of custom artwork too. I don’t know how they would pay for this thing or explain it to users but it seems it would still allow small players a chance while giving users better safety.<p>Personally I think I would like a mix of a few of these. I like the idea of a higher tier in the store and I would be ok if it was expensive to get into (e.g. dev has to pay $1000 for the first review of an app) and had various stricter requirements (e.g. a different contract with apple requiring more notification when transferring app ownership or longer settlement times for user purchases, but also things like the app having good performance). I would also like it if Apple would try to find popular apps in the lower tier and help the good ones into the higher tier (maybe for free for a good viral game or with deferred payments out of (in-) app purchase income for paid apps) while removing the bad ones. And I think they could still improve their scam detection in the lower tier.
When I was doing iOS apps around 2016, there was a simple way to request a refund if you purchased sth by mistake. I think it was a web form using your Apple id. The amount was autocredited back to you immediately.<p>Not sure if this was the norm back then, and if it is now.
This is somewhat ironic given the recent interview Tim Cook did with Kara Swisher on Sway[1] that touched on topics like App Store curation and not allowing side loading.<p>Here's an excerpt:<p>> Kara Swisher: Like Netflix and others, right. What’s wrong with Epic or any developer going their own way or allowing a direct payment system, instead of having to go through the App Store? Why should you have the control?<p>> Tim Cook: Well, I think somebody has to. I think somebody has to curate, right? Because users aren’t going to come there and buy things if they don’t have trust and confidence in the store. And we think our users want that.<p>> Kara Swisher: Why can’t there be more stores, other stores run by others?<p>> Tim Cook: Because if you had side loading, you would break the privacy and security model.<p>> Kara Swisher: On the phone itself, and the phone itself wouldn’t protect the user necessarily.<p>> Tim Cook: Well, you’d be opening up a huge vector on another store.<p>> [a minute or so later]<p>> Tim Cook: I think curation is important as a part of the App Store. In any given week, 100,000 applications come into the app review. 40,000 of them are rejected. Most of them are rejected because they don’t work or don’t work like they say that they work. You can imagine if curation went away, what would occur to the App Store in a very short amount of time.<p>---<p>I agree that not having sideloading, without giving it any thought on the technical implentation, is probably safer in terms of reducing "viruses" and what not.<p>It's arguable that cases like families whose kids spends tens of thousands due to dark patterns in approved applications were no safer than if they had run a side loaded application or a vetted one though.<p>Similarly, I can only imagine the amount of money wasted on misleadingly titled applications.<p>You could perhaps argue that the privacy model is compromised anyway in the sense that you can install Facebook, sign up and have your info dumped online, through no fault of Apple. The upcoming ATT changes should help but they haven't existed since, well, the app store was created :)<p>[1]: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/05/opinion/apples-ceo-is-making-very-different-choices-from-mark-zuckerberg.html?showTranscript=1" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/05/opinion/apples-ceo-is-mak...</a>
It's as if the people paying for this app aren't actually the ones complaining.<p>Why wouldn't they complain if it was a scam?<p>Because they're not actually using it. It's a money laundering app.<p>If you're just laundering money through an app, it doesn't have to actually do anything.<p>And if you make the price outrageously high, you can launder more money with fewer clicks and reduce the risk of some idiot actually buying it.
Search still doesn't work at all. If you search for any of my apps by their exact name the apps aren't the first hit.<p>This is the absolute most basic thing. And they screw it up spectacularly. It's especially infuriating because app names must be unique. What's the point if the search is that broken?
I would imagine that any app that charges users has to make it abundantly clear what the price for the service is. How are people getting scammed? I must be missing something here.
Google isn't immune either I suspect. Before the app store, I discovered a google search scam for usps change of address. You can fill that out for free at usps.com or in the post office, but if you search for it, a bunch of scammy providers offered to do it for you for $20. They were buying google ads so that their links appeared before the usps. They would come from somewhat legit looking domains too. I think part of the issue is that usps.com is the official site vs usps.gov.
I'm just going to say one simple thing: very few people are qualified to assess what Apple actually "seems to care" about. And this poster definitely isn't one of those people.<p>As for the invented-from-whole-cloth link title: please don't do that.