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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

#71

Post by TwoBit »

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.

> most Android devices ship with undeletable malware from vendors

And how are those vendor app actually malware? Their presence can be annoying but they aren't malware.

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

#72

Post by granzymes »

smoldesu wrote: post #70
granzymes wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The only reason I disagree with your disagreement is because Apple is making money here, and they have every incentive to turn the other cheek. 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…

If we restrict Apple's incentives to be purely monetary, then we have to wonder if the reputational damage is less than their cut of users being scammed.

I would argue that the reputational damage is worth more, strictly monetarily. Apple is an incredibly valuable brand, estimated in the hundereds of billions of dollars[0], and they are understandably protective of it. If [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/264875/brand-value-of-th...

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

#74

Post by perryizgr8 »

joezydeco wrote: post #53
echelon wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This discussion is definitely about Apple's monopoly on Ios app distribution. If Apple were to let others distribute apps on the platform, people wouldn't complain as much about their broken store. They'd just use the store that they liked better.

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

#75

Post by amaBasics »

granzymes wrote: post #72
smoldesu wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only reason I disagree with your disagreement is because Apple is making money here, and they have every incentive to turn the other cheek. 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…

If we restrict Apple's incentives to be purely monetary, then we have to wonder if the reputational damage is less than their cut of users being scammed. I would argue that the reputational damage is worth more, strictly monetarily. Apple is an incredibly valuable brand, estimated in the hundereds of billions of dollars[0], and they are understandably protective of it. If [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/26487…

The reputational damage is worth more only if there is reputational damage to begin with.

There may have been some smaller isolated stories in the past, but the truth about App Store scams is really only now coming to light - and so Apple’s calculus might be changing.

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

#76

Post by DangitBobby »

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.

Any reasonable reading of this sentence, while technically it does not explicitly say that it's "completely secure", is that the review process will include security review. It's not without context that this sentence is read, and the history of software tells us what the point of such a review is for protection of the user. Being technically correct is not actually useful when deciding how reasonable people will interpret a piece of marketing material. They are using strong language to give the reader confidence that the apps are safe and they should not be afraid to use them.

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

#78

Post by MikeDelta »

TwoBit wrote: post #71
Griffinsauce wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> most Android devices ship with undeletable malware from vendors And how are those vendor app actually malware? Their presence can be annoying but they aren't malware.

Also known as bloatware. Not malicious, just annoying.

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

#80

Post by swiley »

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…

>This stuff happens despite the tight control, not because of it.

The question isn't weather or not happens, it's weather it's worth the enormous sacrifice of personal computing:

No self hosting dev environments

The dev environments you can find are pretty terrible (often in weird ways you don't notice until you've spent a day working around them.)

Apple decides moderation rules for every chat service with push notifications on the platform. They kick you off the platform if you're not up to their standards.

An extension to the last one is that Apple is able to (and does!) silence political ideas on the platform they don't like. They've gone as far as censoring Xscreensaver on iOS because they don't like the political thoughts people might have watching it. This is a major threat to democracy weather you currently agree with their positions or not.

No innovation is allowed. Want to try a WIMP style GUI? Nope, Apple will kick you off. Even if you don't explicitly violate the rules odd looking GUIs are sometimes assumed to use private APIs and can result in a rejection.

There are many (probably infinitely) more major sacrifices but I'm tired of listing them.

> but it is the least broken out there.

No! Debian and F-droid work extremely well, the difference here is that the community is maintaining the repo and they require everything be done out in the open.

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