Updated iOS App Store Guidelines Clarify 'Cheating', Address In-App Subscriptions

[MacRumors]

Alongside today's announcement of its new in-app subscription program and policies, Apple also updated its iOS App Store Guidelines to reflect the requirements laid out in the press release.

But Apple also made several other additions to the guidelines, with the most notable one being new language aimed to help Apple crack down on developers who "cheat the system". The new language appears as a bullet point in the introductory portion of the document, making it one the key points being stressed by Apple.

If you attempt to cheat the system (for example, by trying to trick the review process, steal data from users, copy another developer's work, or manipulate the ratings) your apps will be removed from the store and you will be expelled from the developer program.

The addition gives Apple more ammunition to help it address growing issues regarding easter eggs carrying hidden functionalities, "counterfeit" applications stealing content from other developers, and manipulation of app ratings through the use of shill accounts and other tactics.

Other notable additions to the review guidelines include language directing developers to submit apps that are simply songs, movies, or books to the iTunes Store or iBookstore rather than to the the App Store, and prohibition of arbitrary geographic or carrier restrictions on who may use a given app.

Article Link: Apple Updates iOS App Store Review Guidelines to Clarify 'Cheating', Address In-App Subscriptions

 

[GeekLawyer]

These seem like commonsense updates. Especially attempts to get rid of the cheats.

 

[spacepower7]

BBC iPlayer in geographic restrictions?

 

[zeemeerman2]

These seem like commonsense updates. Especially attempts to get rid of the cheats.

Not sure about the "copy another developer's work" one... That one is something I recognize a lot as in patents.

For this, there will be only one Flashlight app because all others copied the first one. There will be only one poker app because all others copied the first one.

A personal example; Mega Jump (a popular game) will be deleted because of the less popular and very simple Papi Jump (because they're both jumping games). (Or Papi Jump gets removed, idk, not sure which one came first...)

Etc...
Not good for competition, if you ask me. It's all up to how Apple interprets that rule...

 

[Popeye206]

Sweet.... a good thing all around. Good for consumers and developers. Just not hackers and companies who want to cheat the system.

Now here comes the trolls to tell us how bad this is... how greedy Apple is, and how they will be switching to Android for the 100th time this month.

 

[zeemeerman2]

Manipulating the ratings... Is it forbidden for a developer to rate his own game 5 stars?

Now here comes the trolls to tell us how bad this is... how greedy Apple is, and how they will be switching to Android for the 100th time this month.

[troll]I do it all the time. My mobile phone has Android, while I also have an iPod Touch. Every time I make a call, I have to switch to Android. And afterwards, I switch again to iOS for doing other stuff on my iPod. That happens... like 100 times in a month, as I believe. You, Popeye206, are correct!
[/troll]

 

[Popeye206]

Not sure about the "copy another developer's work" one... That one is something I recognize a lot as in patents.

For this, there will be only one Flashlight app because all others copied the first one. There will be only one poker app because all others copied the first one.

A personal example; Mega Jump (a popular game) will be deleted because of the less popular and very simple Papi Jump (because they're both jumping games). (Or Papi Jump gets removed, idk, not sure which one came first...)

Etc...
Not good for competition, if you ask me. It's all up to how Apple interprets that rule...

I don't think they're saying you can't develop your own app that does something similar to someone else's, but if you were to blatantly do your own version of Angry Birds and call it "Pissed off Parrots" and the game looked 99% the same... someone might have issue.

 

[maflynn]

It seems these items are rather commonsense and help foster a developer friendly atmosphere. Its hard to attract or keep developers if they fear their work will get ripped off, of others are unfairly increasing the visibility of a competing app.

 

[troop231]

What about the people who give a crappy rating on one of your apps and it's not justifiable, Ex: Someone leaves a review saying the font is too small, when there is a pinch to zoom function on a pdf file in the app

 

[Cougarcat]

I don't think they're saying you can't develop your own app that does something similar to someone else's, but if you were to blatantly do your own version of Angry Birds and call it "Pissed off Parrots" and the game looked 99% the same... someone might have issue.

Exactly, or what happened to Lugaru a few weeks ago, when someone blatantly copied it and made it available for .99 instead of $10.

 

[rstansby]

Not sure about the "copy another developer's work" one... That one is something I recognize a lot as in patents.

For this, there will be only one Flashlight app because all others copied the first one. There will be only one poker app because all others copied the first one.

A personal example; Mega Jump (a popular game) will be deleted because of the less popular and very simple Papi Jump (because they're both jumping games). (Or Papi Jump gets removed, idk, not sure which one came first...)

Etc...
Not good for competition, if you ask me. It's all up to how Apple interprets that rule...

I think they are talking about directly copying code, not just coming up with a similar idea.

 

[RoboCop001]

I don't think they're saying you can't develop your own app that does something similar to someone else's, but if you were to blatantly do your own version of Angry Birds and call it "Pissed off Parrots" and the game looked 99% the same... someone might have issue.

Who wants to develop Pissed Off Parrots with me??

Here's my idea.......

It's a stress reliever.

For each bird, you touch a button and yell things like "You C&#T!!! I'LL F&@* @#&* YOUR FACE!" or some such nonsense, and depending on how good your swearing and general pissed-off-ness (the Pissedoffometer) is, you destroy the proportional amount of pigs and buildings!!

Your swearing and anger powers the birds!!!

 

[djgamble]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-gb) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

Nothing to do with eastereggs... all about people cheating the ratings.

 

[Popeye206]

What about the people who give a crappy rating on one of your apps and it's not justifiable, Ex: Someone leaves a review saying the font is too small, when there is a pinch to zoom function on a pdf file in the app

All part of the game... I think most people weigh out the comments as to what others say and take them for what they are. I know I never judge too harshly unless there are a lot of negative comments.

 

[Rudy69]

Good, I've always wondered what happened to developers who would try to cheat the process (often using obviously copyrighted content without permission....sound boards anyone?)

 

[Popeye206]

Who wants to develop Pissed Off Parrots with me??

Here's my idea.......

It's a stress reliever.

For each bird, you touch a button and yell things like "You C&#T!!! I'LL F&@* @#&* YOUR FACE!" or some such nonsense, and depending on how good your swearing and general pissed-off-ness (the Pissedoffometer) is, you destroy the proportional amount of pigs and buildings!!

Your swearing and anger powers the birds!!!

I'm in!

 

[karsten]

good, hopefully it will get rid of some of the crud. i think the region issue doesnt apply to the bbc iplayer as that is more of a license/legal issue than arbitrary limits.

 

[coder12]

Who wants to develop Pissed Off Parrots with me??

Here's my idea.......

It's a stress reliever.

For each bird, you touch a button and yell things like "You C&#T!!! I'LL F&@* @#&* YOUR FACE!" or some such nonsense, and depending on how good your swearing and general pissed-off-ness (the Pissedoffometer) is, you destroy the proportional amount of pigs and buildings!!

Your swearing and anger powers the birds!!!

Angry birds ... 2!

 

[troop231]

Quite frankly, your app should do the work drawing people in, not cheating. If a dev. needs to resort to cheating, he needs to rethink his app.

 

[orbitaljunkie]

My assumption would be that this is Apple's attempt to thwart the new business of paying for reviews. That and certain wily developers who create dozens of Apple IDs and then review their own app. Typical of overseas apps.

 

[firewood]

Manipulating the ratings... Is it forbidden for a developer to rate his own game 5 stars?

I don't know if Apple has provided precise guidelines in this matter.

There's a long slippery slope between asking my mom to buy my app and leave a rating (pretty obvious how many stars it's going to be, since she still has those ugly finger painting I made in 2nd grade on the wall), ...

spending all my time building a facebook fan page hawking my app and begging for 5 star reviews, ...

and paying some company to buy copies of my app using 100 shill accounts and leave all 5 stars ratings, or to buy my competitors nearly identical apps and rate them all 1 star with bogus reviews saying that those other apps are all broken.

 

[applefanDrew]

Does the review board see the code? I thought they just got the final product, installed it, tested it, then approved/rejected it? Do they actually take a look at the code and look at your variable names, functions, etc etc?

 

[silentnite]

You gotta get tired of telling adults how to behave. If you make a good app people will seek it out.

 

[clydefamous]

More User Agreements!!!

It seems like every time I install anything from the appstore, I got to agree to a new User Agreement. What gives? At least this new go around sounds good.

 

[BC2009]

Not sure about the "copy another developer's work" one... That one is something I recognize a lot as in patents.

For this, there will be only one Flashlight app because all others copied the first one. There will be only one poker app because all others copied the first one.

A personal example; Mega Jump (a popular game) will be deleted because of the less popular and very simple Papi Jump (because they're both jumping games). (Or Papi Jump gets removed, idk, not sure which one came first...)

Etc...
Not good for competition, if you ask me. It's all up to how Apple interprets that rule...

I'm guessing that "copy another developer's work" has more to do with copying icons, graphics, or even stealing source code.