I’m talking about proactively staffing up and policing their own store
It’s not users job to “police” their “curated store”
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Indie Developer Dogged By Scammy Clone Apps Again Highlights the Holes in Apple's App Store Review Process
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I’m talking about proactively staffing up and policing their own store
It’s not users job to “police” their “curated store”
What, exactly, is your point? You asked for lucrative options, and I listed some. If the outcome generates more revenue than it cost to make it's a lucrative option.
If apple is getting a cut that makes then technically an accomplice…Does Apple still get their cut from these scam apps? Maybe there is our answer.
This is why Jobs rocked Apple and Cook, not so much. Cook could care less or he just does not understand the technology. Don't know which, but I can't think of another alternative.
No, but doesn't that illustrate Apple's own vulnerability and failures, especially when they claim that sideloading shouldn't be allowed. Perhaps sideloading could be more secure, precisely because it's not Apple mismanaging apps on it's own store. Apple could do better, and because of that, there should be more consideration for sideloading. Would 5,400 new apps be added to other app stores?
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I don’t believe Apple reports these numbers but I think it is a fair assumption that Apple has prevented the distribution of scam apps and regularly polices the App Store. The scale of the App Store requires crowdsourcing some of the monitoring as the only practical solution. As i mentioned before, the benefit of the curated and moderated App Store is that Apple can remove those apps and provide a redress to effected developers and users.
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I'm thinking about the people whining that Apple shouldn't allow side-loading because it would circumvent this fantastic curating process. Tsk tsk... I say break down these walls right away. They provide nothing but a false sense of security.
You think there would be fewer scam apps if users could sideload iOS apps from any website? …. Do you think iPhone users would have an easier time getting refunds or developers have a direct way to remove scam apps from distribution if apps were able to be sideloaded?
I'm not sure I see overall what the problem is. Yes, the copied graphics could be a copyright issue but it may not depending upon what they are. Copied text is generally not an issue. Not having features listed is a problem for Apple as they didn't verify the App works as described. Similar sounding name? Obviously people forget about the many clones of well known products that have existed for decades outside the virtual media. Clones and copycats will always be around to skim off the market leader. Heck, look at Amazon sometime.
The only difference between this situation POST sideloading being available is that the developer will understand more clearly whom they need to complain to, which are the companies/countries/courts with jurisdiction. OR, is there some understanding that sideloading will yield a new era of scam apps being unavailable?
I remember Apple is using an automated review system with some human intervention if required.
How easy is to bypass it!
Just setup a date on your app to change its behavior after certain date (usually past the review process), and that’s how they get away with this.
Developers using these techniques should have their Developer status revoked.
What Apple could do is setup a way for users to report this kind of behavior and actually have humans evaluating these complains.
How easy is to bypass it!
Just setup a date on your app to change its behavior after certain date (usually past the review process), and that’s how they get away with this.
Developers using these techniques should have their Developer status revoked.
What Apple could do is setup a way for users to report this kind of behavior and actually have humans evaluating these complains.
I guess that round mouse shipped with the first iMacs COULD be considered a rock, good point.
- Working as an iOS developer at a FANG-level company like Twitter or Google you can easily make $250k/yr within a few years
- Starting your own company w/ VC funding
- Starting your own web-based SaaS business (where you have complete control over distribution/customer relationships)
- Freelance/contract work
Do you have an iPhone? Curious how you got all the apps off the phone since they are worthless. Oh, and what do you do with the iPhone if you don't use apps?
Your first sentence, I agree with. So many legit authenticator apps from companies I trust, why would I use a 3rd party app for security?
Decided to do some back-of-envelope calculations on this.
The app store is estimated to have in the ballpark of 4 million non-game apps and 1 million games, so 5 million apps total.
Let's say, totally arbitrarily, that 20% of those are either blatant ripoffs or outright scams (mis-advertised $10 monthly subscription for something absolutely useless, for example). So 4 million "honest" apps, and 1 million "bad actors". Maybe the fraction of bad actors is much higher or lower, but this is just for discussion.
Let's say it takes 15 minutes of human manual labor examining every app in the store to narrow down a candidate list, and 2 hours per actual bad-actor app to confirm it's intentionally bad and not just shovelware, document its rule violations, and do the necessary paperwork to remove it and reject resubmissions that don't fix anything. Again, those are arbitrary; I feel like the low-hanging fruit would be way easier to find and remove, or I might be wildly optimistic about how much time it takes, but just for the sake of argument.
That works out to 3.25 million person-hours of labor to completely clean up the entire app store. Add in 20% administrative overhead, and that's roughly 4 million person-hours. Assuming 40 hour workweeks and 48 weeks of work per year, that means that 2100 employees could completely clean up the app store in a single year.
The bulk of the work doesn't need a huge amount of technical experience, so let's say those 2100 folks get a very generous average of $150,000 per year in pay and benefits, plus add in another 200 managers and senior reviewers who make $250,000.
That's a bit over $350 million. Which is a lot of money, but the app store grossed around $85B last year, so Apple's gross cut would be between $13B and $26B. I'm having trouble finding estimates of the net profit margin on that, but at absolute worst Apple would be losing 3% of its profit margin to this task, and probably under 2% in reality.
All of which is to say that even if my level-of-effort numbers of an App Store bad-actor purge are off by an order of magnitude, Apple could still completely clean up the app store in a year or two and still have the app store turn a healthy profit.
And once you've cleaned it up, now you can cut back and have a smaller team of people operating in parallel to the reviewers who do a "due diligence" check for an hour or two on each submitted app to make sure it's not a scam and/or ripoff, plus a small squad who operates on incoming scam reports to police existing apps for things that slipped past somehow, so the ongoing costs would be significantly lower.
The fact that Apple has not done this already is by far the thing I am most disappointed in them as a company for. This should have been a priority from day one.
The app store is estimated to have in the ballpark of 4 million non-game apps and 1 million games, so 5 million apps total.
Let's say, totally arbitrarily, that 20% of those are either blatant ripoffs or outright scams (mis-advertised $10 monthly subscription for something absolutely useless, for example). So 4 million "honest" apps, and 1 million "bad actors". Maybe the fraction of bad actors is much higher or lower, but this is just for discussion.
Let's say it takes 15 minutes of human manual labor examining every app in the store to narrow down a candidate list, and 2 hours per actual bad-actor app to confirm it's intentionally bad and not just shovelware, document its rule violations, and do the necessary paperwork to remove it and reject resubmissions that don't fix anything. Again, those are arbitrary; I feel like the low-hanging fruit would be way easier to find and remove, or I might be wildly optimistic about how much time it takes, but just for the sake of argument.
That works out to 3.25 million person-hours of labor to completely clean up the entire app store. Add in 20% administrative overhead, and that's roughly 4 million person-hours. Assuming 40 hour workweeks and 48 weeks of work per year, that means that 2100 employees could completely clean up the app store in a single year.
The bulk of the work doesn't need a huge amount of technical experience, so let's say those 2100 folks get a very generous average of $150,000 per year in pay and benefits, plus add in another 200 managers and senior reviewers who make $250,000.
That's a bit over $350 million. Which is a lot of money, but the app store grossed around $85B last year, so Apple's gross cut would be between $13B and $26B. I'm having trouble finding estimates of the net profit margin on that, but at absolute worst Apple would be losing 3% of its profit margin to this task, and probably under 2% in reality.
All of which is to say that even if my level-of-effort numbers of an App Store bad-actor purge are off by an order of magnitude, Apple could still completely clean up the app store in a year or two and still have the app store turn a healthy profit.
And once you've cleaned it up, now you can cut back and have a smaller team of people operating in parallel to the reviewers who do a "due diligence" check for an hour or two on each submitted app to make sure it's not a scam and/or ripoff, plus a small squad who operates on incoming scam reports to police existing apps for things that slipped past somehow, so the ongoing costs would be significantly lower.
The fact that Apple has not done this already is by far the thing I am most disappointed in them as a company for. This should have been a priority from day one.
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Apple truly has not cared, nor tried to protect users from scam for many years. Very good analyses of the top revenue generating subscription apps strongly points to Apple having made billions (not millions as cited in this article) over the years with its 30% of scam revenues. I will cite again a very good article about this prompted by Wordle clones (which Apple had to clean up due to media pressure). Wordle was actually well guarded because it was accessed via a url link. The Samsung clones talked about in the article are the real threat of forcing everyone thru the App Store. Samsung users would be much better protected by side loading the app from www.samsung.com because Samsung can utilize laws to protect its trademark on the WWW, while Apple does shyte WRT protecting IP and marks exposing everyone to scams in the App Store. As Jason points out, there is likely just too much money for them to really want to fix it. Link:
Wordle may be fixed, but the App Store is still a total mess
Of course this will get flamed by everyone who thinks the App Store is setup to protect users blissfully ignoring that Apple has consciously (they must know what is going on) let scams run rampant as they make bank and Tim adds another $99M bonus onto of his > $1B total compensation to date.
Wordle may be fixed, but the App Store is still a total mess
Of course this will get flamed by everyone who thinks the App Store is setup to protect users blissfully ignoring that Apple has consciously (they must know what is going on) let scams run rampant as they make bank and Tim adds another $99M bonus onto of his > $1B total compensation to date.
Hey lets not deflect from the real issue here, and that is the evil of sideloading apps that are not vetted by Apple. Remember Apple says the App store is safe and secure. No shady apps here folks. Now move along, move along.
The web and twitter have, for years, been replete with folks sharing stories of informing Apple of blatant scam apps and curious search results, on and on
I'm sorry, but there's just no excuse for how little they appear to care about it.
Money is clouding their judgement here
I'm sorry, but there's just no excuse for how little they appear to care about it.
Money is clouding their judgement here
Do you have any evidence of "how little they appear to care about it" other than they're not perfect? As I pointed out earlier, we don't know if they catch 1% of scam apps or 99%.
I'm not defending Apple. I with they'd do better. I'm just asking for evidence.
Short term, yes. But long term, hail no. Long term doing thing Apple's way will make things 1000x worse due to mindless consumerism.
Caveat emptor: let the buyer beware. An educated consumer would be harder to trick into downloading a scam app. I've wandered the Android wilderness and navigated through numerous pitfalls. To date, I have yet to fall prey to a scam app because I always have my guard up when dealing with stuff I find on the PlayStore or from sideloading. Take to heart the 190th Rule of Acquistion: Hear all, trust nothing. Caveat...
Apple's way eliminates the need for the informed consumer, because Apple says they've got your back. Lower your guard. They don't allow unwanted pests to enter their Walled Garden™. The only conclusion I can draw is Apple wants these scam apps in the AppStore for the reason many have already stated: $$$?. Get bitten by the scam apps too many times or have the charges reversed a few times and your AppleID gets locked so you cannot download from the AppStore.
Matching name and/or description text should be easy to automate flagging. And a high per-week sub price should be a red flag in itself.