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If I take the top 1000 apps in the App Store, the number of downloads are not perfectly distributed amongst all of them. i.e., if that pool of apps recorded 1 billion total downloads, each app did not get 1 million downloads. If anything, the #1000 app probably got 10,000 or fewer downloads (.001% of total downloads). The main article and comments are suggesting that 2% of ALL top 1000 downloads are malicious. That seems highly unlikely as this cohort of apps is going to receive the most scrutiny. They wrote, “there were 18 apps that The Post defined as being scams among Apple’s top grossing apps” but in another sentence casually mention that was the top 1000 apps. They never tell us where in the top 1000 those appeared.

The stats we should see: assuming 1 billion total downloads amongst the entire pool of top-1000 apps, how many downloads were for a scam app? How many of those downloads resulted in a customer making a charge? How many of those charges were ultimately refunded by Apple by request? Did Apple retroactively refund all those customers after the scams were identified?

I don’t expect six-sigma performance out of the App Store review process, but I do expect Apple to try as hard as possible and make things right when money is taken. The WaPo article is super disingenuous: they complain about Apple not doing enough. Apple claims they shut down 470k developer accounts. WaPo then complains that Apple did too much because now the low-hanging fruit is gone and the remaining scams are harder to identify.

I can appreciate a well-argued hit piece, but this one was lacking.

The top apps list is constantly changing. A fraud app might be number 900 on the list of top 1000 but could have spent days or weeks in the top 10 where it got massive exposure from Apple.
 
Well they have some good products - but they sell us $1200 iPhones that are nothing more than "made in China" for $200 devices, and pocket the profit. Same thing with App Store - they take their 30% for doing almost nothing, and then make it hard to get refunds or deal with bad apps or mis-advertised apps. Perhaps they need to return to designing innovative products rather than striving to be the richest company in the US.
No one is forcing you to buy anything from Apple. Don't like it, go get a job!
 
Seems like a hit piece when "teaming with scams" is defined as 18 of 1000 apps selling something you don't actually need and Apple has already removed 2/3 of them. I'd still rather have the Apple review process than not on the App Store.

When I think "scam", I'm thinking of an app that captures my bank and cc information, or my login and password information for other accounts.

Selling me a VPN or a QR scanner I don't need is limited to the $5 subscription fee - Apple's security measures keep the apps from reaching through any further.
 
I don’t even use apps with IAP anymore, all it has done is encourage subscription models on everything from calculators to weather apps. Apple are to blame for pushing devs to use IAP rather than a 1 time fee.

I am a developer and have made my living from Mac software since 1992. A one-time fee does not really work. If you had bought my main product in 1992, I would have worked an additional 29 years providing upgrades for free. Apple does not support an upgrade model so IAP is the only economically viable way to handle revenue.
 
You base 5% on what? Let the market decide, bureaucrats in Washington making laws, LOL. While I fully support changes to app stores, there are many difficulties to enabling it. right now you can have an external payment system and pay 0% commission you just can't directly link to the site, not advertise inside the App Store (but plenty of room outside the App Store. You could even have a third party App Store with this party payments giving customers a code or vbucks, and have them download apps from the App Store. I don't think the current law allows this, but you could have a fixed/variable hosting fee, all inclusive fee (as you have now), bonding of transactions with civil and criminal penalties for scammers, and teeth for App Store curators to review the developers background, and take down requests similar to copyright requests. But while I'm dreaming how about a bigger house, regained youth, a mega yacht, and a likable personality?
I base it on absolutely nothing. I thought the context of my post was clearly a conjectural supposition. I just think apple needs to provide a path forward, however it is effectuated.
 
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That’s only if you were downloading apps purely randomly from that 1000. In reality the 48% should be higher, since people will gravitate toward more known apps/brands. I would imagine the scam rate from the top 100 for example would be much lower.

You’re introducing an assumption into the equation. I’m just using the numbers given in the article. In the population of 1000 apps, we know 98% are not scams.

It’s easy to post conjectures. I could say the percentage of scam apps is higher for apps outside the top 1000 since getting on that list is a difficult accomplishment. The average person isn’t just going to download apps from this list, so their chance of getting scammed could be much worse.
 
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I would prefer it the way they do it for Sign In with Apple. Users can choose what they want to use but Apple’s payment must always be an option.
That also seems like a fair recommendation. However they do it, it’s clear apple needs to provide a path towards it. But I also think we will find issues with people using these alternate payments and then expecting apple to provide refunds.
 
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You’re introducing an assumption into the equation. I’m just using the numbers given in the article. In the population of 1000 apps, we know 98% are not scams.

It’s easy to post conjectures. I could say the percentage of scam apps is higher for apps outside the top 1000 since getting on that list is a difficult accomplishment. The average person isn’t just going to download apps from this list, so their chance of getting scammed could be much worse.
the problem two choices

1. advert - not good new ios
2. in apps - 99 cents pure cheap but still a lot of people complain so pricy while dev cost so high.

me , trying in apps purchase my current project and advert in android version.
 
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Or we could report this another way. 98% of the top paid apps were NOT scams.
And if the App Store didn’t exist and there were third party app stores or any app could be loaded directly from the developer, the numbers would be flipped 98% scams and 2% real! People saying it’s not an issue on Mac or PC software have never tried searching for apps other than mainstream apps. Try and search for an computer app that will convert video files for example. They are all scammy.
 
I am a developer and have made my living from Mac software since 1992. A one-time fee does not really work. If you had bought my main product in 1992, I would have worked an additional 29 years providing upgrades for free. Apple does not support an upgrade model so IAP is the only economically viable way to handle revenue.
Actually you can offer a one-time purchase for your apps. You can just offer different versions, 2.0, 3.0 etc. each better than the other with added functionality. Minor updates are of course free. Similar to what the developers of Firecore (Infuse) is doing.
 
“Apple leads the industry with practices that put the safety of our customers first…”

Until Apple implements end-to-end encryption of iCloud backups and lifetime bans for app developers violating “do not track” requests, this is just marketing speak. C’mon Apple, prove me wrong!
 
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Actually you can offer a one-time purchase for your apps. You can just offer different versions, 2.0, 3.0 etc. each better than the other with added functionality. Minor updates are of course free. Similar to what the developers of Firecore (Infuse) is doing.

This is a work around, but it’s not ideal for devs that want to offer a cheaper upgrade path for their current customers.
 
Try and search for an computer app that will convert video files for example. They are all scammy.
FFmpeg. It's been around for over 20 years, converts anything to anything, and is free and open-source. I use it on the regular, both on Mac and Linux. FFmpeg is like the swiss army knife of video format conversion. Tons of internet tutorials available on how to use.
 
the problem two choices

1. advert - not good new ios
2. in apps - 99 cents pure cheap but still a lot of people complain so pricy while dev cost so high.

me , trying in apps purchase my current project and advert in android version.

I’m confused why you quoted me?

I wish you good luck developing your app :)
 
And if the App Store didn’t exist and there were third party app stores or any app could be loaded directly from the developer, the numbers would be flipped 98% scams and 2% real! People saying it’s not an issue on Mac or PC software have never tried searching for apps other than mainstream apps. Try and search for an computer app that will convert video files for example. They are all scammy.
handbrake ?
 
I’m confused why you quoted me?

I wish you good luck developing your app :)
the point word is scam. Appl user dont like scam like in android and they would buy in app purchase while in android nobody scare of scam because mostly nobody would paid a dime for an app.
 
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I am a developer and have made my living from Mac software since 1992. A one-time fee does not really work. If you had bought my main product in 1992, I would have worked an additional 29 years providing upgrades for free. Apple does not support an upgrade model so IAP is the only economically viable way to handle revenue.
A competitor of my app offers the app for free with in app purchases. I offer mine as a paid app. Guess what: I’m switching to in app purchases within the next year even though I really don‘t want to do it. The problem is that people see “free” and immediately download it and make the in app purchase. Many of those some users flat out ignore paid apps. I really hate in app purchases but it is the only way for many apps to gain any traction at all.
 
Whether an app is a scam or not, Apple is still making their 30% cut on the sale. They therefore have no incentive to take down apps with a high sales volume, regardless of whether or not they're legitimate.
It makes Apple look bad, makes the AppStore less trust worthy(meaning less sales), makes their argument for taking a 30% cut to ensure customer protection invalid. There is a lot of incentive for Apple to take down scams app, it could cost them a lot more in the long term to keep them up.
 
It makes Apple look bad, makes the AppStore less trust worthy(meaning less sales), makes their argument for taking a 30% cut to ensure customer protection invalid. There is a lot of incentive for Apple to take down scams app, it could cost them a lot more in the long term to keep them up.
So 20 out of 1000 apps were scams?

Doesn’t make the 30% cut invalid because more than 20 out of 1000 could have been scams if they didn’t take the 30%. At any rate apple is entitled to charge what it wants within the law.
 
A competitor of my app offers the app for free with in app purchases. I offer mine as a paid app. Guess what: I’m switching to in app purchases within the next year even though I really don‘t want to do it. The problem is that people see “free” and immediately download it and make the in app purchase. Many of those some users flat out ignore paid apps. I really hate in app purchases but it is the only way for many apps to gain any traction at all.
business decision . one time 19.90 dollar sooo pricy while free app with in app purchase 19.90 cheap.
 
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