Despite its verification process, Apple would validate fraudulent clones of applications on the App Store


Benjamin Logerot

February 22, 2022 at 2:15 p.m.

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Apple App Store ranking 2020 © © Apple

© Apple

For years, iOS application developers have been complaining about the excessive presence of fraudulent clones on the Apple store.

Nothing changes yet, as confirmed by Kevin Archer, the developer of an authenticator app, who published disturbing comparisons with another suspicious app. From the design to the texts, the offending application looks much too much like the original for the taste of its creator, who wants to warn about these problems.

Like two drops of water, app clones leave nothing to chance

Kevin Archer is the creator of the Authenticator App, a two-factor authentication token generation and management app. A few days ago, he denounced on his Twitter account the fraudulent applications present on the Apple App Store, which shamelessly copy and monetize the work of others while passing between the nets of process validation of the mark at the apple.

In his thread, he posts screenshots comparing his app with one developed by a Russian team. The design and the texts are almost identical, strongly suggesting copying and pasting without much effort. Archer explains that this application, published twice on the App Store, but under a different username and logo color, asks users to rate the software as soon as the account creation process, while they haven’t accessed the features yet. A practice that goes against guidelines that Apple distributes to developers according to him.

More worryingly, the app uses suspicious techniques to trick users into paying a weekly subscription of $3.99. “If you forget that you have subscribed, you will have to pay 335 dollars a year,” he adds in his Twitter feed.

Too big a problem on the App Store

These fraudulent application questions are not new and this is what worries users and developers. Already in 2012, Apple’s global vice-president of marketing, Phil Schiller, had complained to his teams when a copy of the game Temple Run reached the top of the App Store despite user ratings not exceeding one star.

Counterfeits of Minecraft
or Player Unknown’s Balleground Mobile (PUBG)
were able to bring hundreds of millions, even billions of dollars to unscrupulous developers (not counting the percentage taken by Apple) before the American giant took any action against them. Lawsuits have obviously been brought by the actors suffering from this fraudulent competition, but the practices have still not disappeared.

Latest victim: the now famous wordle
which has seen an astronomical quantity of clones emerge on the various application stores with even, for some, in-app purchases or subscriptions at prices deemed very high.

Apple did restore the “Report a problem” option last October after years of suppression, with the aim of combating scams by making it possible to report suspicious applications. It is still necessary now that the Apple teams react quickly enough to avoid any prejudice to legitimate developers.

On the same subject :
Apple would have paid 60 billion to developers in 2021

Source: MacRumors



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