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Apple’s tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Apple’s tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams

#51

Post by gigatexal »

dkarras wrote: post #24

The article's premise does not make sense. This stuff happens despite the tight control, not because of it. If it was uncurated, it would be a cesspool like the Google play store (or ...shudder... the "competing" stores). Having a paid app that reads QR codes is not necessarily a scam. The article admits that 2/3 of the apps they reported were taken down. The article claims: "If consumers were to have access to alter…

I guess they need to scale the team to meet the demand of apps. Adding headcount reduces profit but the benefit to brand image should compensate enough.

Re: Apple’s tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams

#52

Post by smoldesu »

Griffinsauce wrote: post #35
dkarras wrote: post #24

The article's premise does not make sense. This stuff happens despite the tight control, not because of it. If it was uncurated, it would be a cesspool like the Google play store (or ...shudder... the "competing" stores). Having a paid app that reads QR codes is not necessarily a scam. The article admits that 2/3 of the apps they reported were taken down. The article claims: "If consumers were to have access to alter…

> Play store apps, unless proven otherwise, are generally malware you carry with yourself every day, with potential access to everything in your device because the OS is nowhere near locked down compared to Apple counterpart. I'm sorry but this is complete bullshit. Your data on Android appears to be about a decade old.

Exactly. By their same logic, Apple also ships all of their phones with malware since they are a third party who refuses security audits.

Re: Apple’s tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams

#53

Post by joezydeco »

echelon wrote: post #22
joezydeco wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't derail. There are other threads about Apple's store and their vig.

Apple is an anticompetitive steam roller and they deserve every measure of criticism they receive. Don't ask for censorship to protect a brand you value. Apple is not beyond reproach.

All I said was to take the 'Apple Monopoly' discussion to the 'Apple Monopoly' threads, of which there are plenty.

This discussion can be about the shitty App Store approval process and the shitty App Store developers without getting into the financials.

Re: Apple’s tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams

#54

Post by rchaud »

granzymes wrote: post #44
amaBasics wrote: post #34

Apple themselves seem to be intentionally breaking the App Store at times. From the article: > Apple used to have a button [1], just under the ratings and reviews section in the App Store, that said “report a problem,” which allowed users to report inappropriate apps. Based on discussions among Apple customers on Apple’s own website [2], the feature was removed some time around 2016. Why would they remove the ability…

>Why would they remove the ability for people to easily report apps? Presumably for a reason. I don't work at Apple, so to spitball some possibilities: * The "report a problem" button was being misused and had worse signal than other metrics Apple added. * Legal or Public Relations pressed to remove the button because only a portion of reports were actioned (possibly because of the above point) and it was causing leg…

Even in this most generous possible explanation, Apple removed a quality-control check and didn't replace it with anything.

Re: Apple’s tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams

#55

Post by smoldesu »

granzymes wrote: post #44
amaBasics wrote: post #34

Apple themselves seem to be intentionally breaking the App Store at times. From the article: > Apple used to have a button [1], just under the ratings and reviews section in the App Store, that said “report a problem,” which allowed users to report inappropriate apps. Based on discussions among Apple customers on Apple’s own website [2], the feature was removed some time around 2016. Why would they remove the ability…

>Why would they remove the ability for people to easily report apps? Presumably for a reason. I don't work at Apple, so to spitball some possibilities: * The "report a problem" button was being misused and had worse signal than other metrics Apple added. * Legal or Public Relations pressed to remove the button because only a portion of reports were actioned (possibly because of the above point) and it was causing leg…

Maybe if it was something so innocuous they'd have made an official statement on it

Re: Apple’s tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams

#56

Post by granzymes »

TaupeRanger wrote: post #49
dkarras wrote: post #24

The article's premise does not make sense. This stuff happens despite the tight control, not because of it. If it was uncurated, it would be a cesspool like the Google play store (or ...shudder... the "competing" stores). Having a paid app that reads QR codes is not necessarily a scam. The article admits that 2/3 of the apps they reported were taken down. The article claims: "If consumers were to have access to alter…

The article is arguing that the veneer of safety implied by Apple (above and beyond other stores) might make users more susceptible to fraud because they are more likely to believe the apps are all safe. They might be more cautious with other stores that don't offer that protection. Whether this leads to more actual cases of fraud would require a real study to be done.

The reason I disagree with this argument is that it boils down to "tons of scams are better than a few sophisticated scams because users are more wary."

Users themselves have various levels of sophistication, and unsophisticated scams have plenty of victims.

Re: Apple’s tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams

#57

Post by rchaud »

tlogan wrote: post #10

I 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 o…

> also they should sent an iMessage a couple of days before the change.

But then users might disable the auto-renew, and Apple wouldn't get their cut.

Re: Apple’s tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams

#58

Post by Someone »

amaBasics wrote: post #34

Apple themselves seem to be intentionally breaking the App Store at times. From the article: > Apple used to have a button [1], just under the ratings and reviews section in the App Store, that said “report a problem,” which allowed users to report inappropriate apps. Based on discussions among Apple customers on Apple’s own website [2], the feature was removed some time around 2016. Why would they remove the ability…

> Why would they remove the ability for people to easily report apps?

Reasons could be:

- nobody uses that button

- people use the button, but mostly not for its intended purpose.

I would guess a fairly generic “report a problem” button would attract lots of messages of type 2. I can see people complain there about missing features, ask support questions, etc. I would bet that, to many, it wasn’t clear that button let you send a message to Apple.

Re: Apple’s tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams

#59

Post by delfinom »

defaultname wrote: post #43
smoldesu wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When has Apple made that promise? Where do they make that promise? From apple.com/privacy: "Every one of the more than 1.8 million apps on the App Store is required to follow strict privacy guidelines and report how it uses your data. And every app is rigorously reviewed by a team of experts at Apple."

Which doesn't say or claim that it's "completely secure". The notion is preposterous if third parties are involved. Only a Sith deals in absolutes. Then again, so do people making disingenuous arguments online.

Idk, when I see " rigorously reviewed", I think being able to see the app is attempting to masquerade as an existing one...

Re: Apple’s tightly controlled App Store is teeming with scams

#60

Post by smoldesu »

defaultname wrote: post #43
smoldesu wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When has Apple made that promise? Where do they make that promise? From apple.com/privacy: "Every one of the more than 1.8 million apps on the App Store is required to follow strict privacy guidelines and report how it uses your data. And every app is rigorously reviewed by a team of experts at Apple."

Which doesn't say or claim that it's "completely secure". The notion is preposterous if third parties are involved. Only a Sith deals in absolutes. Then again, so do people making disingenuous arguments online.

Excuse me, they used the words "every one of" and "every app" to describe the purview of their security checks. Is that somehow not absolute enough for you?
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