Is Apple’s App Store ‘Teeming’ with Scams?

by Richi Jennings on June 7, 2021

Roughly 2% of the top-grossing iOS apps are, in some way, “scams.” Or so it is said: There’s been much chatter this weekend that Apple is sleeping on the job of reviewing iThing apps.

Not that this is news: It’s hardly the first time such a charge has been leveled at Tim’s crew. But this time, it’s printed in a Newspaper Of Record—the Daily Bezos … sorry … The Washington Post.

Is this simply a spat between the A and the A in FAANG? In today’s SB Blogwatch, we wonder if there’s a There there.

Your humble blogwatcher curated these bloggy bits for your entertainment. Not to mention: Hey, Siri.

Time to Drop your iPhone?

What’s the craic? WaPo’s Reed Albergotti and Chris Alcantara report—“Apple’s tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams”:

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Plastic butter knife”
Tim Cook has long argued it needs to control app distribution on iPhones, otherwise the App Store would turn into “a flea market.” But among the 1.8 million apps on the App Store, scams are hiding in plain sight [yet] there is no way for Apple customers to report this to Apple.
…
Of the highest 1,000 grossing apps on the App Store, nearly two percent are scams. … And those apps have bilked consumers out of an estimated $48 million. … What’s more, Apple profits from these apps because it takes a cut of up to a 30 percent.
…
Apps … use inauthentic customer reviews to move up in the App Store rankings and give apps a sense of legitimacy to convince customers to pay higher prices. … Apple’s monopoly over how consumers access apps on iPhones … gives customers a false sense of safety. [And] because Apple doesn’t face any major competition and so many consumers are locked into using the App Store on iPhones, there’s little incentive for Apple to spend money on improving it.
…
Apple employs a 500-person App Review team. [But] Eric Friedman, head of Apple’s Fraud Engineering Algorithms and Risk unit … said that Apple’s screening process is “more like the pretty lady who greets you with a lei at the Hawaiian airport than the drug sniffing dog,” according to a 2016 internal email uncovered during the Epic Games trial. … “App Review is bringing a plastic butter knife to a gun fight,” [he] wrote in another.

Eric really is king of the colourful metaphor. Apple spokesperson Fred Sainz speaks more soberly (without really addressing the substance):

We’ll continue learning”
We hold developers to high standards to keep the ‌App Store‌ a safe and trusted place for customers to download software, and we will always take action against apps that pose a harm to users. Apple leads the industry with practices that put the safety of our customers first, and we’ll continue learning, evolving our practices and investing the necessary resources to make sure customers are presented with the very best experience.

But it’s not the first time. Ben Lovejoy brings this “Background”:

A flurry of reports”
The app review process … has been one of Apple’s key defenses in fighting antitrust lawsuits and investigations into its monopoly hold over the distribution of iOS apps. … However, there have been a flurry of reports suggesting … scam apps not only get accepted into the store, but they remain there even when they have a high enough profile to earn millions of dollars.

Is the problem less about reviewing and more about marketing? Thereby ponders rawtxapp:

Not ideal”
People have this belief that Apple is somehow protecting them, so they offload the critical thinking to Apple and lower their own guards. For example, a person thought he was getting a legitimate Bitcoin wallet app, but turns out it was a fake and he lost his life savings.
…
I’m not blaming Apple for not stopping these scams, at their scale, it’s just practically impossible to stop every scam. But by making their unrealistic promise that everything on the app store is safe, they are misleading people into this false sense of security.
…
No matter how much time/energy/effort they spend, they will never eliminate all scams. … That would mean [they’d] make it much harder for apps to get approved in the store (and it’s already a very painful process). So you’d only end up with apps from large developers which is not ideal.

And Pollux cuts to the chase:

Apple profiting from it”
The solution is only three letters long: FTC. Until they step in and lower the hammer hard on Apple, nothing will stop the continuation of this fraudulent activity—or Apple profiting from it, making them a party to it.

Perhaps the key is how hard it is to report scams. J___o___h___n a_g_r_e_e_s: [You’re fired—Ed.]

The apps are not removed”
This isn’t great and Apple needs to work much harder. You see tons of apps with hundreds (sometimes thousands) of 1-star reviews all saying ‘scam’ and the apps are not removed.

Or maybe the problem lies in how Apple treats app developers. Marco Arment despairs of Developer relations:

Leaders have already shown us”
Apple’s leaders continue to deny … that our apps provide substantial value to iOS [and] that any portion of our customers came to our apps from our own marketing. … For Apple to continue to deny these is dishonest, factually wrong, and extremely insulting … to our efforts [and our] intelligence.
…
Without our apps, the iPhone has little value. … To bully and gaslight developers into thinking that we need to be kissing Apple’s feet … is not only greedy, stingy, and morally reprehensible, but deeply insulting..
…
At WWDC … these same people are going to try to tell us … how amazing we are, how important our work is, and how much they value us. … But the leaders have already shown us who they really are, what they really think of us, and how much they value our work.

But c’mon, it’s only 2%. That’s a lot, says jellomizer:

It is a big deal”
2% of a big number, is a big number. … Percentages is a wonderful way to hide information, and should never be trusted as good metric.
…
We are slowly recovering from a Pandemic that only hit around 1% of the population, and it is a big deal that required a large effort.

So do we need an independent app review body? smoldesu seems to think so:

Trustworthy”
Apple is making money here, and they have every incentive to [ignore the problem]. Their entire business model is based on driving user interaction and spending, so I don’t think they’re the most trustworthy party to audit the App Store. That would be like if we let the President decide which news channels were allowed to broadcast at the beginning of their term.

Meanwhile, CoolDiscoRex resorts to toilet humor:

Curated”
Just search the App Store for 10 minutes. … More Like the “Crap Store.” … If that’s ‘curated’ then so is every turd I’ve ever passed.

And Finally:

Hey, Siri

Hat tip: b3ta

Previously in And Finally

You have been reading SB Blogwatch by Richi Jennings. Richi curates the best bloggy bits, finest forums, and weirdest websites … so you don’t have to. Hate mail may be directed to @RiCHi or [email protected]. Ask your doctor before reading. Your mileage may vary. E&OE. 30.

Image sauce: Filiberto Santillán (via Unsplash)