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Apple Removes Apps Due to Accusations of Shill Reviews

LagunaSol said:
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.
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Including inadvertent 1-star reviews with positive comments attached. That sort of thing always infuriates me.
 
rorschach said:
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).
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I agree with this, the amount of times I've searched for something and would have liked to sort them out by rating.
 
even educated fleas do it

This happens everywhere, and there are no exceptions. The scale of it in this case is the only thing that brought action.

Any devs here not asked friends to review their app? Anyone with dev friends not been asked the same?

All the big publishers do the same. No, it's not some corporate policy, it's the producers doing their own bit of PR. When your job is at stake and you're emotionally attached, of course you're going to go out of your way to self-promote.

Good on Apple for kicking that guy's balls though, if only because he had so many crap apps.
 
freediverdude said:
Wow, all 1900+ apps deleted? Doesn't that seem kind of harsh over some fake reviews on one app.
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this is exactly why Apple will have a higher quality level than the composition. You can't trust everyone to not exploit loopholes in the system. While it may sometimes seem "Orwelian" to ban one App and accept another, clearly cases like this validate Apple's vigilance.
 
fat phil said:
This happens everywhere, and there are no exceptions. The scale of it in this case is the only thing that brought action.

Any devs here not asked friends to review their app? Anyone with dev friends not been asked the same?

All the big publishers do the same. No, it's not some corporate policy, it's the producers doing their own bit of PR. When your job is at stake and you're emotionally attached, of course you're going to go out of your way to self-promote.

Good on Apple for kicking that guy's balls though, if only because he had so many crap apps.
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If they're honest, the developer will usually say something like:

"If you like, please remember to rate it."
 
Good apps have many reviews

A truly good app will have thousands of reviews. I don't buy apps with only a couple of reviews. I've bought a few that were recommended in tech publications. Other than that, like anything else, let the buyer beware!

Snap is an app I read about that is good as far as I am concerned but has not caught on. It is a tech tool to scan networks.
 
miknos said:
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 !!!
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Yeah, Macupdate got spammed by them too. It is pretty obvious when you get new people writing only one review, giving the app 5 stars, and using broken english.

In the app store is it hard to tell if the person is a one review wonder and broken english is par for the course (I hate the emoji crazy reviews, yes I get it you can use emoji you don't have to spam it).
 
deanrr said:
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?
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well i was buying one of them too, and after looking into it it was such a crap, it did not even included all the advertised stuff. i deleted it and complained, but did not got refund.

i would ask for like 10$ review fee per pay app submission, or limit the amount of free app submissions for each developer account?. i am sure a lot of such "developers" just spam the app store and make things chaotic there.
idiots like that make the review process so long.

why not one app and then for each destination a payed in app purchase?!
 
bbtrinet said:
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.
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Actually there is something like there already implemented, but in a bad way, and there is not API for that.
With Safari it is possible to add pages to your home screen. (which actually makes a link there)

It is even possible to make links for any URL style link that is supported by the phone, add an icon, and name for that, ... that all can be done with adding a profile (iPhone Configuration Utility can even used for that) the only thing that sucks is, that it is not opened with the default URL handler, but automatically with safari. Which, opens first safari, and then switches immediately to the right app and handles the URL, ...

Well opening the stuff with the normal URL handler and providing an API to create that would allow us to make bookmarks to quite anything developers can imagine.

(apple why aren't you guys reading feature requests)
 
fat phil said:
This happens everywhere, and there are no exceptions. The scale of it in this case is the only thing that brought action.

Any devs here not asked friends to review their app? Anyone with dev friends not been asked the same?

All the big publishers do the same. No, it's not some corporate policy, it's the producers doing their own bit of PR. When your job is at stake and you're emotionally attached, of course you're going to go out of your way to self-promote.

Good on Apple for kicking that guy's balls though, if only because he had so many crap apps.
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You think it is fair that the free app codes are available only to the US, that makes it not that simple for international developers to do that with a payed app!
 
The App store is like going garbage diving. Sometimes you find gold, most of the time dirty diapers. I wish the App store could categorize professional apps vs. little play apps (like the meow piano and fart app) better.
 
freediverdude said:
Wow, all 1900+ apps deleted? Doesn't that seem kind of harsh over some fake reviews on one app.
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NO, not at all. That kind of BS move is unacceptable. And Apple's using them as an example to tell other shady developers not to do this.

Ugh, this kind of crap pisses me off so much. I hope this jerkoff goes out of business and gets mauled by dogs. Seriously, thank you Apple! Thank you for having the balls to do the right thing (where most companies would probably just remove the comments and leave the apps).
 
Mattie Num Nums said:
The App store is like going garbage diving. Sometimes you find gold, most of the time dirty diapers. I wish the App store could categorize professional apps vs. little play apps (like the meow piano and fart app) better.
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In the iTMS, I often use the review left at the top of the page by the iTunes staff. It would be nice to hire a staff to write reviews, or have a group of reviewers (3rd party maybe?) to sort through the trash.
 
freediverdude said:
Wow, all 1900+ apps deleted? Doesn't that seem kind of harsh over some fake reviews on one app.
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No. Indications are that they were doing this for most or all of their apps, most of which were just knockoffs of other apps anyway.
 
Wham

What a huge number of apps this developer has/had. Most of them are apps for travel/tour books, many of which are to unheard of places. Someone has been busy traveling and taking a computer to record notes - or just obtained a bunch of tour guides from a library.

Since apps are selected/downloaded based on ratings, this developer needs to GO.
 
doctor-don said:
What a huge number of apps this developer has/had. Most of them are apps for travel/tour books, many of which are to unheard of places. Someone has been busy traveling and taking a computer to record notes - or just obtained a bunch of tour guides from a library.

Since apps are selected/downloaded based on ratings, this developer needs to GO.
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it contained quoted wikipedia pages, a selected number of flicker images, and openstreetmap rip for that region (if i remember right)

generated from online sources, and not redacted (that was clear from the quality)
 
aucl said:
it contained quoted wikipedia pages, a selected number of flicker images, and openstreetmap rip for that region (if i remember right)

generated from online sources, and not redacted (that was clear from the quality)
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Disgusting. All the better that this "developer" is no more on the App store. My only worry is how long until this person invades the Android Marketplace? :(
 
What else is new? :eek:

Anyone who casually browses the user reviews for the Nike + iPod training albums can see they're crawling with hired PR phonies. :rolleyes: Nothing new here.
 
What I really hate is are the people who rate 1 star because they didn't read the instructions properly. On some the description of an app it could say does not work with first gen iPhones and iPod Touches, and people will rate it 1 because it didn't work on their first generation iPhone or iPod Touch and wasted X dollars. Hey idiot, if you read the description in the first place you wouldn't have a problem, now, would you? It's also on the online Apple store, when people buy the wrong cable/connector/case/etc they give a good product one star because they bought the wrong one. I cringe when I read those.
*LTD* said:
Including inadvertent 1-star reviews with positive comments attached. That sort of thing always infuriates me.
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I never understood those at all. If they love the app, why the hell would they rate 1 star? And why does Apple assume that if there is no rating there is a one star rating, they should ask for your rating before being allowed to post.
 
Damn even thought it's a bit shady to post some fake reviews, it seems harsh to delete 1900! apps I mean damn thats allot work down the drain for one mistake.


Now if all of the 1900 were just pointless crap apps, I can see.

But why does Apple have a approval process if they let all this crap in?
 
Good apps

So far the only non-game apps that I use are: RPNcalc and Facebook. I am not associated with the developers of either of these apps, but I think they are very useful, decently written apps.

What apps are you using?
 
Chaos123x said:
Damn even thought it's a bit shady to post some fake reviews, it seems harsh to delete 1900! apps I mean damn thats allot work down the drain for one mistake.


Now if all of the 1900 were just pointless crap apps, I can see.

But why does Apple have a approval process if they let all this crap in?
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Maybe they will let the developer resubmit the apps, without the old fake reviews.
 
Chaos123x said:
Damn even thought it's a bit shady to post some fake reviews, it seems harsh to delete 1900! apps I mean damn thats allot work down the drain for one mistake.


Now if all of the 1900 were just pointless crap apps, I can see.

But why does Apple have a approval process if they let all this crap in?
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So they can co-opt all the really good ideas... ;)
 
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