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Security Researchers Discover 10 App Store Apps Engaging in Ad Fraud
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That’s a good article. Here is another one that focuses on Apples integration/acceptance into China in 2021.
Censorship, Surveillance and Profits: A Hard Bargain for Apple in China
I do like Tim Cooks quote from 2017 that is referenced in the article.
“Your choice is: Do you participate? Or do you stand on the sideline and yell at how things should be?"… “My own view very strongly is: You show up and you participate. You get in the arena, because nothing ever changes from the sideline.”
So Apple, who has never claimed to be perfect, at least give it a go. Google, whilst they say "Security is awesome, money is better" (paraphrased by Gordon Gecko) do little to actually achieve the security side, and put it on the people who use their software. And for the vast majority, have no clue what they are downloading as long as it crushes those candy 'real good'
Tim is going to talk them out of all of the human rights abuses! Riiiight. How is that going?
Sorry, I thought you were being serious. I didn’t know it was his job to do that any more than stopping the shooting epidemic/Human rights abuses in the U.S. And pretty much WOW for your jump in his responsibilities as being head of a tech company,
It isn't he job to do any of it and he isn't doing any of it.
His quote is nonsense Apple are in China for the money, they aren't changing a thing there.
1. They are a retail business and they are there because it’s a huge market.
2. They only store Chinese Customers Data on the China iCloud servers. Unless it’s TikTok, but we know that already. Anyone who uses TikTok are knowingly giving their data away to the Chinese Government, when they acknowledge the agreement.
3. They have reportedly reduced child labour in China for their products (and I’m not getting into an argument over that because neither of us know so don’t make out you do). But I know you will anyway, because it’s too obvious.
4. You think his quote is nonsense because you think you can change things from the sideline?
5. Apple is clearly moving away from China as it’s main manufacturing process. Who actually knows why. Maybe you do KNOW?
You see, I don’t deal with mindless speculation. And go….
The quality of the apps weren’t compared. Even if they don’t contain adware, they’re basically useless apps with very crappy features and UI. So astonishingly bad that you can tell they were just whipped together for some money through making you watch 30 second advertisements or whatever else. The App Store is flooded with these types of apps…
Read the reviews of some of these. The real reviews are the 1-star, read some of the 5-star and they aren’t even in proper English, indicating fake reviews to pump up their star ratings.
Select “most critical” from the reviews menu in order to get to the 1-star ratings, otherwise you will be flooded with nothing but 5-star reviews most of which aren’t real.
Photo Gallery - Gallery Vault
Collage Maker - Mixgram
YouCam Makeup: Selfie Editor
ToonMe Cartoon Photo Editor
Peachy - Body Editor
Body Tune - Photo Editor
Many of these reviews say things like “scam” “advertisers hijacking app” “my card was charged $40” “doesn’t work, false advertising features” and on and on.
There are hundreds like this in the Photo & Video category alone. Same deal for games, social networking, entertainment, health & fitness, music…all of ‘em have hundreds of fake apps.
No it isn’t, lol, not at all. That’s where many of them are from. Read the phony 5-star reviews, they are attempted to be English but you can clearly tell by the sentence structure and funny wording that it isn’t someone who is native to English. And I’m not knocking the language issues themselves - it’s how over the top excitedly positive the reviews are, that you can tell they are fake. Hundreds and hundreds of “Oh my gosh!! _____ is the best app ever, much things to like, lots great things, fantastic it works so well!! must try!!” and things like that. If you think those reviews are real…well I don’t know what to tell you. Read some of the 1 star reviews from actual people. Some people post that they hit CANCEL on a pop-up and they were charged $40. Most say “scam” “beware” “false advertising” some I’ve read even said “I’m reporting you to the FCC” lol.
These apps are not quality, they are not real feature sets, they were whipped up and thrown onto the App Store to generate advertising revenue, nothing else.
How would you actually know? If it's a guess, say it's a guess, but don't make it out as a fact.
I just picked a couple of these randomly to have a look. I stopped looking when you were 0 out of 3 with your selection.
Peachy - Body Editor. - 4.8/5*'s. Overwhelmingly positive and with real reviews. The most negative reviews were from 2+ years ago with the most recent being generally 5 stars.
YouCam Makeup: Selfie Editor. 4.7/5*'s. Pretty much the same overall well-written reviews. The developer responds quickly to negative & positive reviews. Most (of the relatively few) complaints are about the new pricing structure, and we know that is NOT limited to any quality app these days.
Photo Gallery - Gallery Vault - 4.6/5*'s. Most favorable are good. There are only 14 written reviews on this, , so nice pick! Critical Reviews are about issues with the app or the subscription model. The developer responds with a request to upgrade as they have fixed the issues.
So basically, your own examples are supporting the opposite of what you are saying. It's clear that your point is based on fiction rather than evidence and just because an App is Advertising or Subscription based, it means less than nothing these days.
Your assertions are simply not backed up in fact and are simply opinions based on who knows what.
Exactly. I'm actually all for a walled garden, if Apple actually screens the apps it lets in
Collage maker and Toon me are the only ones in the list that I would seriously consider as a threat as I can literally find no information about them (LYAM APPS FZE) the developers site is inactive and the other has a shady (Moscow based) background.
Photo Gallery vault seems to have negative reviews based on their subscription model and the app simply not working correctly.
Some of the other apps you posted are legit with massive multinational backing who are not Chinese BTW and most complaints on all of the apps would be easily resolved by requesting a refund via Apple if it doesn't function as planned (you are supposed to cancel before a free trial ends!).
As to the "bad english" reviews - there's equally bad english in some of the bad reviews, it's a global market, most of which do not speak english as a first language. And I'd warrant that the majority of fake reviews are probably processed by India rather than China. Yes there's going to be fake reviews, thats a given for virtually (if not all) apps.
Linux had an app distribution store long before Apple. What are you talking about…Oh the sweet sideloading war again.
Nowadays, even Linux is trying to create the App Store system (flat packs and whatnot) to mimic the convenience and easy to manage app distribution that App Store has, despite Linux being highly customisable and more secure (than iOS id guess?) If sideloading has SO MANY benefits, why Linux is trying to move away from it? The worry of “opening the floodgate” on iOS is just talking points provided by apple and other influencers to sound reasonable and echo chamber does the rest, while in reality, people are ignoring sideloading more and more as time goes on, except enthusiasts, hobbyists and developers.
Funny that you named Google and put Apple incl. Tim falsely at bright light.
Did you realize that Google „left“ China decades ago, exactly because of their surveillance methods?
Whilst Apple continues to climb up Chinese government asses for the sake of money and profit, and semi-directly supports their surveillance and censorship methods against Chinese citizens by implementing everything the Chinese Government demands.
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Yet it didn't take off. -_- Only recently Flatpacks and some other formats start to gain popularity.
You know it doesn't matter who did it first. Apple pushed this concept to the public in 2008.
You don’t understand, their ratings are 4.8/5 because THOUSANDS of them are fake. Don’t you get it? Read the 1-star reviews only. Then read some of the 5-star and see if they sound legitimate.
I mean, you can’t be serious - you think this is a real 5-star review? From Peachy:
“This app is so good because you get to change the way you look if you want and it's also A good app to learn how to up your skills on editing and photo shopping if you don't like the way you look you can change that in an instant and there's so many options too choose from like a tattoo or changing your face impression whatever you like it's there. and the person who came up with this did a great job I just wanna say nice work on this app and im glad I took the time to write this review and hope you read it. So yeah nice and good job on the app it's a pleasure to write this review to you guys good job with everything you do on this app and have a good day and hopefully read this yeah good”
Nobody talks like this. Nobody says, “so yeah nice and good job on the app and it is a pleasure to write this review to you guys good job”
There are thousands of the 5-star reviews that are just as much gibberish. The 1-star reviews are the true sources.
I like how you fanboyishly ask me "where did they say thay?" and then go on to explain how the security of Appstore reviewe failed. So which one is it, not for security or for security? Double standards are of course double as good as regular standards.
Now, or course, I will extend an olive branch here they DO review apps. But here are apps with same functionality/exploit that got trough.
As far as me mentioning what so deeply wounded you - Cook and Uber, may I remind you that a MAJOR app on the Appstore did massive surveilance (even of police undercover agents trying to bust Uber's tax evasion facilitation scam) yet that big, very widely used app NEVER got pulled. This was resolved by a "pep talk" betweeb Cook and Uber. Meaning all the while until SHTF in relations to customer relations and actual a legal conondrum Apple let that app just sail by... and not block it for the wiretapping pos that it was.
Again, my point being: if the goal of something is security and safety and that something fails (or arguably turns a blind eye, or uses its position etc) then it's against the whole reasoning as to why it should exist.
Therein lies the beef some people have with the AppStore. Apple's vetting process has some major flaws if numerous garbage apps slips through, but something useful like iDOS 2 gets banned. If it were AI only vetting, then I could understand. Rules are rules, no exception. But there is supposed to be human oversight.
There have been many complaints regarding Apple's vetting process over the years. Yet it seems they refuse to fix what needs fixing or they're doing a piss poor job of fixing it. They should ban all Meta (Facebook) apps and TikTok for starters. Weed continue to infiltrate the Walled Garden and they refuse to do anything about the two biggest weed.
So don't install an app from a bad actor? In these cases it was Apple enabling fraudelant behaviour, doesn't seem good?
I think you misunderstood my stance as an argument. Good luck with your device responsibility. Actually I don't think luck is involved when you waive all responsibility to an entity working for secret services.
In this example, you should leave the area, however the garden walls are too high to climb and the false guard towers scare most off from sampling the real world, hindering themselves whilst they pointlessly wallow about in a toxic atmosphere.For those in the PNW, an air filter that catches 99% of airborne particulates is *worse* than just breathing in all the ash and soot from those wildfires because it gives a false sense of clean air!
Even though having 1% of those particulates in your home is mathematically better than having 100% of those particulates in your home.