Apple Warns Developers Not to Manipulate App Store Rankings

[Clubber]

Forgive me if someone mentioned this, but if they are "developers" (they could at least write an app) why wouldn't they just write an automated tool to do this themselves?

The trick is the unique iTunes accounts.

So basically if your competition wants to kill all of your apps they simply have to use this bot to download your app enough to get you booted from the Dev program?
I would never do this but if I lost my Dev membership due to someone else I would be upset. Yes I am a dev (I just joined last week)

I'm sure it would have to pass scrutiny of real people at Apple, but it's possible. If your app is already highly ranked, I suspect it's less likely someone could get you delisted. If it's not highly ranked, I wouldn't think someone would bother to spend $5000 to delist you.

 

[ncaissie]

I'm sure it would have to pass scrutiny of real people at Apple, but it's possible. If your app is already highly ranked, I suspect it's less likely someone could get you delisted. If it's not highly ranked, I wouldn't think someone would bother to spend $5000 to delist you.

I don't mean spending 5000 but lets face it, if one guy can do this why can't a developer who wants to kick any apps the same or better than his own?
It’s probably someone who wrote a bot to create the accounts though Itunes on a mac or PC then another bot to download the app. If you had a sniffer to watch the communications between your itunes and the server (Is it encrypted?) you could probably figure it out.
Or if they create the accounts over a web script that talks to apple.com. Can you create an account at apple.com? I think you can I just don’t recall.
There are a lot of smart hackers out there.

 

[firewood]

Forgive me if someone mentioned this, but if they are "developers" (they could at least write an app) why wouldn't they just write an automated tool to do this themselves?

Most competent app developers do not have access to illegal botnets, stolen credit cards or iTunes accounts, dozens of paid mules in multiple geographic regions or legal jurisdictions, and whatever else it takes to keep their activities from being traced back to them.

 

[staypuffinpc]

Temple Run

I've been wondering why Temple Run has so many reviews compared to some other apps...this may explain things.

Actually, if you notice, Temple Run is in the image above, but is not marked in red, as are some other apps. Also, if you play Temple Run, you'll realize that hundreds of thousands of games are played on it each day. So, it's pretty likely that Temple Run legitimately has that many reviews.

Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with Temple Run. I'm just an addicted user

 

[marlenez]

There are so many problems with the App Store it would take pages to write about it. The biggest problem, IMHO, is that Apple does nothing to help developers find their apps. Not enough categories, only a minuscule amount of apps featured on the main page and the main pages of each category. You have over 500,000 apps and about 60 are show on the main page - ridiculous.

It's very difficult to get your app reviewed by the review sites regardless of whether it's a good/great app and most of the sites review the same apps as the other sites and most of those apps are by big developers.

It goes on and on and I for one am very frustrated.

 

[TwinMonkeys]

One minor issue that Apple hasn't tackled much is discoverability - when you have an App Store that has hundreds of thousands of Apps, there's many solid apps that end up getting ignored simply by virtue of the sheer numbers of Apps out there. That's why some developers use these options to try and game the system. Is better search the answer? A different pricing scheme? A different organization on the App store. I don't claim to know the answer and haven't thought about this that much, but I think that improving discoverability would significantly cut down on this attempt to manipulate the rankings. But as the App Store starts to become a bigger and bigger business, you're going to see these types of attempts to game the platform. Look at http://www.buyfacebookfansreviews.com for example, Facebook is the biggest social network out there and there's dozens of companies out there that try and game that system. There's services that try and sell Reddit karma and all kinds of things like that. Any growing platform experiences these kinds of issues but the key to fixing it is to nip it at the source by removing the incentive. Make it easier for developers to promote their iPad apps in some way and the incentive to do this is lessened. I also think that looking at how eBay and Amazon solve these issues would also help out Apple in this regard.

 

[firewood]

The biggest problem, IMHO, is that Apple does nothing to help developers find their apps.

How did you get the idea that Apple is supposed to do something to help people find your apps? The App store mainly does distribution. As long as the customer buys any apps (e.g. not yours), Apple makes money and sells iDevices.

So this is your marketing problem, not Apple's.

Apple's goal is to sell more iDevices (look at where their massive profits come from). Thus growing your app's potential market, should you decide to do any marketing.

 

[Clubber]

Or if they create the accounts over a web script that talks to apple.com. Can you create an account at apple.com? I think you can I just don’t recall.
There are a lot of smart hackers out there.

Yes, but the trick is still the iTunes accounts which I believe still require a CC number. To bump your ratings significantly, you'd need hundreds of accounts. There are a lot of smart hackers out there and there are a lot of good app developers out there, but they are seldom one in the same.

Furthermore, there is the motivation factor. Why would anyone risk serious felony charges by lifting CC numbers, creating fraudulant iTunes accounts, and creating bots (or zombies which ups the anti even more) just to delist an app that isn't even ranked. Not to mention, it could totally backfire and the app the person is trying to delist actually goes up in the rankings. If your app is already highly ranked, I doubt Apple would delist anyway, or it would even red-flag, because there are already so many existing good reviews. Could you imagine that tactic working on Angry Birds?

I'm not saying it's impossible that a competing developer would successfully get your app delisted with this tactic, but it's highly, highly improbable. Even if it did manage to happen and your super popular app got delisted because someone did all of the above, you would probably have recourse with Apple.

 

[calderone]

The trick is the unique iTunes accounts.

Yes, but the trick is still the iTunes accounts which I believe still require a CC number. To bump your ratings significantly, you'd need hundreds of accounts. There are a lot of smart hackers out there and there are a lot of good app developers out there, but they are seldom one in the same.

You don't actually, but it isn't easy.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2534

 

[artziggy]

McHackers

Yes, but the trick is still the iTunes accounts which I believe still require a CC number. To bump your ratings significantly, you'd need hundreds of accounts. There are a lot of smart hackers out there and there are a lot of good app developers out there, but they are seldom one in the same.

Or, they can hack your account and download the same app multiple times like someone did to me. Fortunately Apple notified me that someone downloaded an app using my account from an authorized device.

 

[Chrjy]

How did you get the idea that Apple is supposed to do something to help people find your apps? The App store mainly does distribution. As long as the customer buys any apps (e.g. not yours), Apple makes money and sells iDevices.

So this is your marketing problem, not Apple's.

Apple's goal is to sell more iDevices (look at where their massive profits come from). Thus growing your app's potential market, should you decide to do any marketing.

I disagree with your comment. I'm an app developer and it takes a long time to develop a decent app. What the OP was suggesting was give the smaller guys a chance. No one is suggesting that Apple is supposed to help developers find your apps but it works 2 ways. Without the App Store, we would find it hard to kick start our software but without developers Apple wouldn't have the successful App Store it has today.

It's incredibly disheartening when you spend weeks/months developing your app only to find it disappears into an ocean of other apps and your return ends up being tiny, much worse than minimum labour.

Apple could offer a random box on each category to at least give all apps some exposure to help indie developers.

 

[Jmclark]

Not all of these apps are using "bots." There's a few sites out there that let get paid by sponsors to get you to download their apps, and in return for the user downloading the app, they get popular paid apps. Over the past month or so, these have become very popular, and I've also begun to notice that the apps I've downloaded from these sites are appearing in the top 25 even though they suck.

After seeing how downhill the App Store has gone since getting my 4S, I'm personally going to stop using these sites. Free 99 cent games aren't worth ruining the free section.

 

[kilwo]

Two quick points:
1. We need a way of the app store showing how many apps were actually used. Maybe sort based on usage info from actual devices. Or look at the app lifetime. ie How long people left it on their device.

2. They need more categories for prices. At the moment it's either free or paid. There should be "Trial / light" version for apps that have limited features and "Ad Supported" for apps that have ads in them.

Cheers,

 

[firewood]

I disagree with your comment. I'm an app developer and it takes a long time to develop a decent app. What the OP was suggesting was give the smaller guys a chance.

So many people feel entitled to something. But just because you spent a lot of time developing an app doesn't mean anyone has to give you a chance. Even if Apple were handing out "chances", many thousands of other people who have spent $10k to $50k and more developing apps are in line way ahead of you.

Word on the street is that however much time and money you spent developing an app, you should now spend 2X to 10X more marketing it, if you really want your chance. That will likely give you far more of a chance than waiting for a handout of free marketing exposure from Apple.

 

[Chrjy]

So many people feel entitled to something. But just because you spent a lot of time developing an app doesn't mean anyone has to give you a chance. Even if Apple were handing out "chances", many thousands of other people who have spent $10k to $50k and more developing apps are in line way ahead of you.

Word on the street is that however much time and money you spent developing an app, you should now spend 2X to 10X more marketing it, if you really want your chance. That will likely give you far more of a chance than waiting for a handout of free marketing exposure from Apple.

I think you're missing the point, I don't feel entitled to anything, I work hard for everything I have. I'm confident that practically every successful company/person in the world at some point got their chance. There always has to be an element of chance for something to take place.

I agree that marketing is incredibly important and it is something I have done, however, it's still very hard to get the exposure needed. I'm not asking for some free handout from Apple (bearing in mind I pay for my developer fee so in essence it's not free) but my suggestion was due to the amount of apps on the App Store it might be an idea to offer a random generated box on each category. It's no skin off Apple's nose, it helps developers and it helps buyers, it's a win win.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

How did you get the idea that Apple is supposed to do something to help people find your apps? The App store mainly does distribution. As long as the customer buys any apps (e.g. not yours), Apple makes money and sells iDevices.

So this is your marketing problem, not Apple's.

Apple's goal is to sell more iDevices (look at where their massive profits come from). Thus growing your app's potential market, should you decide to do any marketing.

No Apple current system for finding sucks and lags behind the others. It needs more sub catigories.

Take the Android Market place for example under categories I have

Games
Books & Reference
Business
Comics
Communication
Education
Enternatianment
Finance
Health & Fitness
Libraries & Demo
Lifestyle
Live Wallpaper
Media and Video
Medical
Music and Audio
New & Magazines
Personalization
Photography
Shopping
Social
Sports
Tools
Travel & Local
Weather
Widgets

Each of those have some other stuff under them to help break them down like Top grossing, Top Paid, Top free, Top new ect. Also depending on the size and category it might have the choice to go down to sub category even more. Also some of them have staff pics inside of it and so on.

Something that the Apple App store lags behind. This is something Apple could really do to help is look at some of the other stores and model after them in the categories.

When you submit an Apple you are allow to choose a few places you want it to appear in but you are limited to the number of choices.

 

[Clubber]

So many people feel entitled to something.

For the $1500 or so investment in the computer, the $99 a year, the time spent learning the language and developing the app from stem to stern, then a 30% cut on all proceeds, I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest a reworking of the app storefront to allow additional exposure for non-entrenched developers.

I don't think he's acting entitled. As a businessman, he would be negligent in not trying to better his position. I don't see why you would fault someone for that.

 

[firewood]

...my suggestion was due to the amount of apps on the App Store it might be an idea to offer a random generated box on each category. It's no skin off Apple's nose, it helps developers and it helps buyers, it's a win win.

And just why should Apple give up a few square inches of valuable store space currently being used for tops apps that are either proven revenue generators (for Apple!) or that Apple thinks might become (the featured ones) to give someone a random chance?

I don't see Tiffany's, Nordstrom's, or even Penny's, setting up a lottery for flea market tables in the middle of their stores. So just why should Apple?

 

[Rodimus Prime]

And just why should Apple give up a few square inches of valuable store space currently being used for tops apps that are either proven revenue generators (for Apple!) or that Apple thinks might become (the featured ones) to give someone a random chance?

I don't see Tiffany's, Nordstrom's, or even Penny's, setting up a lottery for flea market tables in the middle of their stores. So just why should Apple?

What do you say about Apple putting in subcategories?

 

[Chrjy]

And just why should Apple give up a few square inches of valuable store space currently being used for tops apps that are either proven revenue generators (for Apple!) or that Apple thinks might become (the featured ones) to give someone a random chance?

Where did I suggest that Apple gives up any space for their top revenue generating apps?

I don't see Tiffany's, Nordstrom's, or even Penny's, setting up a lottery for flea market tables in the middle of their stores. So just why should Apple?

Not that this comment is an exaggeration on the topic, is this not a slightly different equation?! I'm not asking Apple to show my Apps in their Retail Stores, as I said before it's just a suggestion. The bottom-line is that it wouldn't hurt Apple one iota, it can only benefit all....what part of that are you missing?

or that Apple thinks might become

In essence 'Giving someone a chance'!

 

[firewood]

Where did I suggest that Apple gives up any space for their top revenue generating apps?

Someone else did. Here:

I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest a reworking of the app storefront to allow additional exposure for non-entrenched developers.

Every square inch of the iTunes app storefront is valuable property that Apple optimizes for their revenue generation. Probably millions of dollars of revenue per square inch of store page. So it would be quite unreasonable to give any up.

Would you give up even a single square inch of your front door if people were pouring millions of dollars per month through it into your pocket?

 

[Clubber]

Someone else did. Here:
Every square inch of the iTunes app storefront is valuable property that Apple optimizes for their revenue generation. Probably millions of dollars of revenue per square inch of store page. So it would be quite unreasonable to give any up.

Would you give up even a single square inch of your front door if people were pouring millions of dollars per month through it into your pocket?

I think you are either arguing with an imaginary friend or you are only half reading what you're quoting. Why is it unreasonable to make a suggestion?

 

[Chrjy]

Someone else did. Here:

He never suggested Apple give up space for top selling apps, neither has anyone else, I have no idea where you're getting that idea from!

Every square inch of the iTunes app storefront is valuable property that Apple optimizes for their revenue generation. Probably millions of dollars of revenue per square inch of store page. So it would be quite unreasonable to give any up.

Would you give up even a single square inch of your front door if people were pouring millions of dollars per month through it into your pocket?

I didn't realise Apple was restricted to a certain amount of web/page space is this something that has been enforced by their web hosts!!!

Would you give up even a single square inch of your front door if people were pouring millions of dollars per month through it into your pocket?

Yes I would as no space is being given up therefore it generates further revenue, it doesn't decrease it.

What we're suggesting here is perfectly plausible and as I've stated time and time again, it's a win win for all....why is that so much of a problem for you.

 

[firewood]

I didn't realise Apple was restricted to a certain amount of web/page space is this something that has been enforced by their web hosts!!!

It's enforced by users and their Mac or device, not by web hosts. The iTunes window is only so big, and users only scroll so far (or not at all!) before they lose interest. Every square inch before they lose interest is worth millions. Can you afford to pay?

 

[Chrjy]

It's enforced by users and their Mac or device, not by web hosts. The iTunes window is only so big, and users only scroll so far (or not at all!) before they lose interest. Every square inch before they lose interest is worth millions. Can you afford to pay?

You've clearly missed the entire point, we'll have to beg to differ on this debate as it seems you're just arguing now for the sake of it.