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Developers Complain as App Store Feature Promotes Rip-Off Apps

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Apple has featured a number of apps with disproportionately expensive subscriptions on the App Store, arousing the ire of some developers.

app-store-blue-banner.jpg

The App Store feature on the Australian App Store, first highlighted by Beau Nouvelle on Twitter, is called "Slime relaxations" and reportedly features apps that are non-functional and seek to charge disproportionately costly in-app purchase subscriptions.



One of the apps, called "Jelly: Slime Simulator, ASMR," features a $13 per week subscription to get past its paywall, amounting to $676 per year. Apple's App Store Review Guidelines state (with emphasis our own):
If we can't understand how your app works or your in-app purchases aren't immediately obvious, it will delay your review and may trigger a rejection. And while pricing is up to you, we won't distribute apps and in-app purchase items that are clear rip-offs. We'll reject expensive apps that try to cheat users with irrationally high prices.
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The fact that such apps have passed the App Store review process to be awarded a special feature from Apple on the App Store has induced outrage in some developers, such as Simeon Saëns of Two Lives Left, who took a closer look at one of the apps.

Given that at least some of these apps charge $13 per week, it is difficult to not see them as breaking App Store guidelines, so it is particularly surprising that they were actively featured by Apple on the App Store.

Article Link: Developers Complain as App Store Feature Promotes Rip-Off Apps
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/08/05/app-store-feature-promotes-rip-off-apps/
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What the public thinks is unreasonable, Apple might consider to be totally reasonable. The process of interpreting and enforcing app store policies is arbitrary at best.
 
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Anijake said:
Could they have submitted the app for lets say $1.00 per week then once approved upped to $13? or something like that?
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I know that a number of the apps that have behaved this way: Fortnight was one such game, it made it through the review and then on a set date, it started running code that was against the rules. Probably what’s been happening here - seeing as Apple doesn’t see the code. So the App only has to make in through the review processes and then bam hidden actions can take place.
Personally, any app that does this should get a perma ban!!!
 
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Anijake said:
Could they have submitted the app for lets say $1.00 per week then once approved upped to $13? or something like that?
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Very possible, but it’s unlikely. This is more likely just a gross oversight of Apple.

it’s a double edged sword though. We developers want supersonic reviews, but faster reviews mean more trash slips through the cracks. This can harm both the consumer and developers.
 
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falkon-engine said:
What the public thinks is unreasonable, Apple might consider to be totally reasonable. The process of interpreting end enforcing app store policies is arbitrary at best.
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Exactly. Why are people complaining? It is Apple's App Store. They can do whatever they want. If you dont like it, go to Android.

Well at least that is what Macumor comments section has been telling me for the past 2 years if not more. Apple should pull out of this market!.... Oh wait, sorry there is no market to pull out of this time.
 
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Cosmosent said:
IMO, Apple tries to do the right thing, it's just that they screw up alot !

I don't think Phil Schiller was ever the right man to be running the App Store !

Apple really needed someone with a much higher IQ in that position !
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Maybe it would be handled better with another person, or Apple should put more people on the review process. That said, reviewing and curating every single app on an app store as big as Apple’s definitely can’t catch everything. But promoting this kind of app is a non-sens for me
 
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I'm pretty sure this will be added to the various lawsuits or regulatory body investigations into App Store monopoly, given Apple's defense is pretty much always "safety & security from rogue apps/devs".
 
To those who says “this and that should NEVER happen” and “ban them immediately”, every mirror has two sides. Absolute right or wrong does not exist. No matter how apple tweaks their app review rules, bad players will slip through. At some point, the bad player might be apple themselves or some very big companies. Now what?

It’s totally normal to remove current scam apps and kick them off of recommendation for now. But scam apps and such will eventually come back, in some form. This is basically a cat and mouse game apple has to play forever, and there’s never a single moment users could say “scam/fake apps are gone for good”.
 
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Shirasaki said:
To those who says “this and that should NEVER happen” and “ban them immediately”, every mirror has two sides. Absolute right or wrong does not exist. No matter how apple tweaks their app review rules, bad players will slip through. At some point, the bad player might be apple themselves or some very big companies. Now what?

It’s totally normal to remove current scam apps and kick them off of recommendation for now. But scam apps and such will eventually come back, in some form. This is basically a cat and mouse game apple has to play forever, and there’s never a single moment users could say “scam/fake apps are gone for good”.
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Of course absolute right and wrong exist.

That a cat and mouse game exists between those who make the rules and those who try to evade the rules doesn’t justify those who make the rules actually promoting something that breaks the rules.
 
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