Apple pulled Dash from the App Store for “review manipulation”

Sounds pretty heavy-handed to ban the whole account for alleged review vote stuffing. Even if there was actual review spam going on, couldn&#x27;t this be solved by just removing all existing reviews and blocking further reviews, so the app could be downloaded by searching the app store (or via a direct itunes link)? Brutal.<p>It also opens up a massive blackmail opportunity. Pay up or we will review-spam your app with 10000 fake 5 stars so Apple kicks you out. It&#x27;s reverse xrumer all over again. Nice.<p>Lots of speciality and companion apps don&#x27;t make any revenue from app store sales and don&#x27;t care about rankings. I&#x27;m sure there&#x27;s a fairly big subset of app store developers that would be happy to run their apps unlisted and possibly unreviewed, since there is no other way to deploy an ios app to the general public.

So what stops someone who is against X app, pays for clickworkers to leave fake reviews to get the app pulled? Would the same thing happen if fake reviews were left for a major company like Google&#x2F;Microsoft&#x2F;Dropbox in the app store?

Freedom to install&#x2F;use is one of those cases where the web beats apps, hands-down. Check out devdocs.io in your browser for a free alternative. Works just fine on mobile, too.<p>I love it, and after hooking it up to Alfred, I can search 90% of my commonly-needed docs with a single interface.

Would this be the time to explore selling iOS apps outside of the app store?<p>Offer users a binary download (like when you buy the desktop app outside of the store). Then have a little tool that you run on your Mac, connect the iOS device, enter your developer credentials (since this is a developer&#x27;s tool the user likely has them, otherwise registration is quick and free)... and the tool sideloads the app to the iOS device.

Phil Schiller accuses Kapeli of fraud:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.macrumors.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;10&#x2F;06&#x2F;dash-pulled-for-app-store-review-manipulation&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.macrumors.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;10&#x2F;06&#x2F;dash-pulled-for-app-stor...</a><p>&quot;...<p>I hope that you understand the importance of protecting the App Store from repeated fraudulent activity.<p>Thank you, Phil&quot;

Apple, how on earth is this good for existing customers? You&#x27;re not protecting us - you&#x27;re discouraging us. We&#x27;ve paid for the application and now can&#x27;t get access to it. If there&#x27;s an alternative channel, I&#x27;ll never buy from an Apple app store again.

Yet some how my comment got -4 points...<p>I can only applaud Apple for doing this

He could embarrass Apple by releasing the app on Android.