I just did a quick search for "Virus Scanner" and this was in the first 10 results:<p><a href="https://apps.apple.com/au/app/phone-protection/id1282949977" rel="nofollow">https://apps.apple.com/au/app/phone-protection/id1282949977</a><p>Pretty clearly fake reviews, what it provides seems like a complete scam, in app subscriptions - ticks all the boxes from that article!<p>Four years on and it's still happening. Pretty incredible. Apple largely justifies its 30% cut as providing a curated experience, which is hard to reconcile with this reality.
The elephant in the room is that Apple <i>must already know</i> this is happening. It's not like they need a viral blog article or a user flag uprising to tell them this -- It's been obvious to most technologically saavy users who own iphones -- and it must be 10x as obvious to someone who works at Apple <i>on the actual App Store</i> . They're just choosing to do nothing about it because it's advantageous to them. Period. But what else is new when large sums of money are involved...
This seems like a really big counterpoint to the corner stone of Apple's "30% is reasonable" take - that the App Store is a safe and curated experience.<p>It's one thing for a one off app to slip through, but to have it make its way to the top charts with so many positive reviews is a really, really bad look.
Past threads:<p><i>How to Make $80k per Month on the Apple App Store (2017)</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19416740" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19416740</a> - March 2019 (17 comments)<p><i>$80k/month App Store Scam</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14526156" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14526156</a> - June 2017 (195 comments)
How did they got through apple review process? Heck the review process is super strict that I’m being very careful for iOS app but these guys seems to know the way around it
How many devs are ramen-profitable on the App Store versus how many devs tried to be?<p>I always have the suspicion that Apple wants us to believe that the App Store can make <i>any</i> honest, hard-working dev filthy rich, when in reality you need to be extremely lucky to get more money out of it than you put in.<p>(Please don't reply with anecdotes. I want statistics!)
If anyone here needs ideas for legitimate apps, read the reviews for HotSchedules which is where managers post minimum wage workers’ schedules and each worker is forced to pay $3 for a terrible, terrible app.
The experiment has failed. Apple is NOT keeping up their end of the bargain to justify them being the only app store on iOS. Time to open the platform up and get some more competition. Apple is slow, unresponsive and downright lazy in how they mishandle the app store. Time for some choice. I know I am far less excited about mobile devices - mainly because of the utter mismanagement of the platform. Google is marginally better, but not enough to justify a switch. Both platform holders should be forced to open stuff up at this point.
Depressing and disgusting all around. Imagine being such a worthless sack of shit that you work at Apple and actively let this slide. These people are walking around filled with pus and maggots where their soul should be