Apple Removes Apps Due to Accusations of Shill Reviews

[MacRumors]

iPhoneography reports that Apple's Phil Schiller has apparently taken action based on a complaint that one App Store developer was boosting their app's ratings artificially with fake reviews:

Please investigate for I have just looked at 44 of the reviewers who posted reviews for this Molinker Inc app "NightCam Pro" & EVERY Review except 2 of the 44+ are ALL FAKE 5 [star] reviews.

The customer suspected that the developer had used their 50 promo codes to leave these 5 star reviews on the iTunes App Store. This customer then emailed Apple's Phil Schiller notifying him of the findings which quickly resulted in removal of this developer's 1011 apps.

The practice of leaving positive ratings for your own applications is not an uncommon practice in the App Store, though Molinker's efforts appear to be on a much greater scale. Schiller's quick response is just another sign that Apple is taking recent App Store criticisms very seriously. Schiller has been directly involved in many of the App Store decisions and has even given interviews defending their policies.

Apple also recently reversed a much publicized policy to heavily restrict the use of any Apple hardware images within App Store Apps.

Article Link: Apple Removes Apps Due to Accusations of Shill Reviews

 

[Mr Skills]

Schiller removes shiller?

I'll get my coat.

 

[Darkroom]

ughh... i hate app farms... while this is good news, there are still many more "developers" who are releasing the same apps under different names and graphics, etc.

 

[xMastemah]

1900+? Does that put them back under 100,000? 😛

 

[miknos]

A good example is CleanMyMac app:

Check this out:
http://osx.iusethis.com/app/cleanmymac

There's a bunch of positive comments from FAKE users; most saying "great app, great support, etc".

I HATE TESTIMONIALS !!!

 

[carmenodie]

The developers simply found a way of making more money selling the same app under different names.
Heck, go to yahoo movie reviews and you see the same thing. Fake reviews galore, like,"this is best movie ever!No I haven't seen it or any movie ever in my life given the fact that I was blind since birth but this movie rocks!". There is just so much BS on the net it is crazy. Ever been to Engadget? Them clowns boaster every piece of Kirf and vapor ware tech that can be cranked out form overseas. And yes I do believe they too hype up product with fake posts. Meh!

 

[deanrr]

Whats phils email address so I can ask for a refund on the on a molinker travel app that was just wikipedia information and a half complete metro map?

 

[BongoBanger]

Although the App store has hundreds of good apps, one wonders how much of the 100,000 is just utter crap like the apps mentioned here?

Most of my iPhone owning friends have less than 20 apps they use which they supplement with games (some of which are really good). This is one of the reasons why I think app volume by itself is a meaningless statistic.

 

[nwcs]

The number of apps is a useless statistic to people who understand but helpful to people who don't. Just like megapixels in a camera. It's a myth that more is better. Unfortunately, there is no metric for measuring the quality of apps...

 

[Markuzzzz]

For developers like myself it's very frustrating that all the time put in a app that might be interesting to people to check out, is flooded by these kind of techniques... 🙁

Its a shame that this way the App Store looses its charme.

 

[freediverdude]

Wow, all 1900+ apps deleted? Doesn't that seem kind of harsh over some fake reviews on one app.

 

[rorschach]

Good. I can't stand fake reviews. The obviously fake ones are the most annoying though - you know, when everyone is giving the app 1-2 stars and then suddenly you see ten 5 star, glowing reviews in a row. 🙄 Maybe I'll actually report the apps now if Apple is going to do something about them.

Although the App store has hundreds of good apps, one wonders how much of the 100,000 is just utter crap like the apps mentioned here?

Most of my iPhone owning friends have less than 20 apps they use which they supplement with games (some of which are really good). This is one of the reasons why I think app volume by itself is a meaningless statistic.

The volume is fine, I'd rather have more apps than less...Apple just needs a MUCH better way to organize apps.

For example, if I search for "wiki" in the App Store, in the search results there's no way to sort by rating (and they don't even show the rating in the results list).

 

[NoahK17]

Gameloft just did the same thing with Modern Sandstorm. Look at Dec. 7th. All the reviews are 5 star and they are all FIRST TIME REVIEWERS. They all talk about fixing the router issue the latest update added.

Some of the names are pretty funny too. "the unpn can be fixed guys", "asfjk" and "an elaborate accounting hoax".

I wonder if Phil is going to remove all of Gameloft's games now...

 

[bdkennedy1]

This happens in the iTunes Store, too.

 

[Jelite]

Schiller removes shiller?

I'll get my coat.

Damn, i wanted to do that joke, good job.😛

 

[bbtrinet]

Apple's policy needs to change by summer, along with an SDK change.

1. Icons can change on a user's iphone spring board. This should be both
a) an SDK change that allows something like a calendar app to show a different number every day and
b) a customizable icon upon installation of the app.

2. An apple policy change that each app store submitter must have all 'duplicate' apps removed when each app can be customized in the above way.

A policy change, I think, would reduce the number of apps in the app store significantly, and Apple might not get good PR from this (unless Apple can find some way to spin this in their favor), but it would improve the user's shopping experience significantly.

At least allowing '1', the SDK change, might force the weeding of the duplicate apps. It would also bring in a whole new set of apps. A developer would not have to release thousands of apps, for example, like one for 'Dial Amy', then one for 'Dial Amber', then one for 'Dial April'... etc. etc. etc. They would release ONE app, which can be customized to have a different name on it. They could still sell multiple apps, if one wanted to dial BOTH Amy AND Amber - they would buy the app twice and customize each one.

Think about this: I would rather have an app store where the developers are trying to make good products, and making money from selling good products, rather than developers trying to JUST make money. Maybe there could be a new app store 'award' called 'Apple Diamond Elite' or some such where Apple reviewed the best in each category and gave these awards out to the apps. (or some third party did this). People could then search on the best apps, and these would get higher sales.

 

[miketcool]

Although the App store has hundreds of good apps, one wonders how much of the 100,000 is just utter crap like the apps mentioned here?

Most of my iPhone owning friends have less than 20 apps they use which they supplement with games (some of which are really good). This is one of the reasons why I think app volume by itself is a meaningless statistic.

It's a meaningless statistic used in the Windows vs. Mac debate as well. I know there are at least a thousand "apps" for Android that fall under the category of comics. It'll be interesting to see a format adopted for apps that fall under reading that might not necessarily fall under eBooks.

And by format, I mean a way to set aside statistically, what apps fall under the category of added function vs. content. Content apps vs. functionality apps. The self contained vs. apps that grab web content. I can only imagine what some of the 1900+ apps that were removed were really like...

 

[!¡ V ¡!]

Although the App store has hundreds of good apps, one wonders how much of the 100,000 is just utter crap like the apps mentioned here?

Most of my iPhone owning friends have less than 20 apps they use which they supplement with games (some of which are really good). This is one of the reasons why I think app volume by itself is a meaningless statistic.

The funny thing about all this is that for years the Mac user base has lived with limited about of apps for the various Mac OS releases and became experts in trying to utilize the most out of the limited software available.

Now with the iPhone OS, Mac users have been intoxicated with the amount and variety of apps the Windows world has had available and they are simply indulging in the bounty. Even though that bounty is flawed.

 

[ChazUK]

GOOD IMO.

I used to buy stuff from the app store based on the user reviews and would be pissed if I'd bought a poor app of low quality with glowing reviews.

With no means of refund, there is nothing you can do if these crooks trick you into buying sh*t.

 

[andiwm2003]

i hate app farms. they destroy the market for serious programmers.

i wonder why so far (to my knowledge) there is no good website that lists only good apps with useful reviews. the appstore itself is next to useless. i haven't bought any app in the last 10 month because i wouldn't know how to find good apps. word of mouth is the only way that works. like it was in the 12th century.🙄

i hope the removal of the 1900 apps makes the company go bankrupt.

 

[jayenh]

Gameloft just did the same thing with Modern Sandstorm. Look at Dec. 7th. All the reviews are 5 star and they are all FIRST TIME REVIEWERS. They all talk about fixing the router issue the latest update added.

Some of the names are pretty funny too. "the unpn can be fixed guys", "asfjk" and "an elaborate accounting hoax".

I wonder if Phil is going to remove all of Gameloft's games now...

i won't buy a game by gameloft for this very reason. when the app store first started and they put their first games up the reviews were so obviously fake. a bunch of great reviews, every one of them mentioning the company name, followed by a couple of bad reviews questioning the 5 stars, and then another bunch of 5 star reviews (all mentioning the company name again) to get the bad ones off the first "page".

 

[*LTD*]

Nice to see Apple cleaning up.

 

[stevemiller]

The best part of this thread is incontrovertibly Mr. Skills getting in with that first reply. I've been waiting for that joke to be made for years. *slow clap*

 

[LagunaSol]

Now if only there were a way to purge the MacRumors forums of the shills and astroturfers. 😉

Apple still has much to do to clean up its ratings system. There are obviously bogus reviews on both sides of the spectrum - including 1-star reviews that drag down the average of highly-related apps.

 

[mkrishnan]

i wonder why so far (to my knowledge) there is no good website that lists only good apps with useful reviews. the appstore itself is next to useless. i haven't bought any app in the last 10 month because i wouldn't know how to find good apps. word of mouth is the only way that works. like it was in the 12th century.🙄

I think, perhaps, because of the wide range of kinds of apps that have bowed on the store since its launch. Arn's own Toucharcade is a pretty great site for distilling the iPhone games world to only the titles that are remotely good.

For non-game apps, if they're not from a major source (e.g. this isn't an issue so much with downloading the official NY Times or CNN clients, or the official Skype app, or whatever), I almost feel that one must do some Google searching and find reviews of the app outside the app store to have any impression of whether it's worthy or not.