Apple’s tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams
washingtonpost.com
Apple’s tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams
1–10 of 261 posts
Re: Apple’s tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams
#2The worst thing is, 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 [1].
edit: to be clear, 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.
1: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/03/30/trezor-...
Re: Apple’s tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams
#3I'm boggled that Apple lets apps charge a weekly amount for features that have no appearance of new content each week, like a newspaper or magazine would.
This seems like the simplest thing to fix right away.
Re: Apple’s tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams
#4Would the number of scams in the top 1000 be higher than 2% if the App Store was not tightly controlled?
It doesn't follow that, since some bad things have gotten past the gatekeeper, we should get rid of the gatekeeper.
Re: Apple’s tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams
#5The worst thing is, 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 [1]. edit: to be clear, I'm not blaming Apple for not stopping these scams, at their scale, it's just practically impossible to…
And as the article points out, Apple’s marketing coupled with fake ratings and reviews that plague the App Store can “create the perception for the public that they are safe downloading an app or buying a product and engaging in content that other people have found valuable” (emphasis mine)
Re: Apple’s tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams
#6The worst thing is, 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 [1]. edit: to be clear, I'm not blaming Apple for not stopping these scams, at their scale, it's just practically impossible to…
I have sympathy for the person in this story, but I think shifting the blame to Apple in this case is ludicrous. I'm still somewhat shaking my head that someone went through all of the trouble of using a hardware wallet, and then entered his key words into the first app he downloaded.
If anything I think this story is just a prime example of why irreversible crypto transactions are an absolute nightmare for the general public. With the banking system this person would likely have recourse, with crypto it's "Whoops, your wallet key words got stolen, sorry, there go your life savings."
Re: Apple’s tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams
#7Apple's problem with claiming their 30% tax is to do with maintaining quality of the appstore is how comically small amounts of money they spend policing the appstore. At some point one of these lawsuits is going to have to establish how much they really spend, I would be amazed if they were spending 0.001% of revenue on it.
Re: Apple’s tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams
#8I'm boggled that Apple lets apps charge a weekly amount for features that have no appearance of new content each week, like a newspaper or magazine would. This seems like the simplest thing to fix right away.
I'm boggled that the US government lets Apple rake in 30% for commerce on the app store, despite it being only one of two games in town for commerce.
It'd be like only having two options for cars (Ford and Tesla), and forcing restaurants, stores, etc. to pay 30% of their gross revenue to Tesla for their having brought you.
It's truly bizarro world.
Make no pretense. This isn't about protecting consumers, this is about Apple's control. They want to install toll booths onto every road to reaching Americans, and they're defending it like Omaha beach. No browsers, no runtimes, no relationship with your customers.
(I swear to god if I hear the "but Nintendo" argument again... These aren't toys. Apple captured 50% of ingress to US customers and their commerce, and they tightly control and tax it. Illegal af.)
Re: Apple’s tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams
#9The worst thing is, 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 [1]. edit: to be clear, I'm not blaming Apple for not stopping these scams, at their scale, it's just practically impossible to…
I have sympathy for the person in this story, but I think shifting the blame to Apple in this case is ludicrous. I'm still somewhat shaking my head that someone went through all of the trouble of using a hardware wallet, and then entered his key words into the first app he downloaded. If anything I think this story is just a prime example of why irreversible crypto transactions are an absolute nightmare for the gener…
They might have think twice if Apple didn't promise to make sure the app store was completely secure. A promise which they realistically can't keep at their scale no matter how hard they try.
Also, this is just one example, the article itself has other ones.
Re: Apple’s tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams
#10I got scammed too. I got an app for $14/week for some LG / Samsung screen sharing. We were in hotel and I wanted to stream something to TV in the hotel room so I quickly downloaded it. Wine did not help :( The app was charging me for one month. But then it disappeared from the store.
One problem is this weekly schedule: people do not check cc statements on weekly schedule. Also they should sent an iMessage a couple of days before the change.