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Apple watch keyboard developer put off by app store scammers

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Re: Apple watch keyboard developer put off by app store scammers

#31

Post by fxtentacle »

FYI, in situations like this the best way is to:

1. Register your videos and images with the USCO. It'll cost 2. You can now file DMCA takedowns. Send one to Apple with the USCO registration ID and a copy of the image and a link to the app in question.

3. Apple will either immediately remove that fake app, or be liable for up to $350k in punitive damages for wilful infringement and lose all DMCA protection.

4. If Apple didn't react a week later, approach a lawyer. They'll likely be willing to work purely for 50% commission, because it'll be a slam dunk in court.

5. Repeat the same with Facebook / Youtube if they advertise there with your images or videos. Take Screenshots and write down the url and date and time.

Of course, one would hope that Apple will do the right thing, but it's also reasonably easy to force their hand.

That said, I don't know anyone for whom app development worked out financially if you fairly price your own labor. So maybe just stay away from cheap apps in general.

Re: Apple watch keyboard developer put off by app store scammers

#32

Post by fxtentacle »

Hamuko wrote: post #26
orasis wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can submit a DMCA takedown request for them copying any of your images or text. I have successfully done this on Google Play.

Can you submit a DMCA request if you're not American?

Yes. But the recipient company needs to be American.

Re: Apple watch keyboard developer put off by app store scammers

#33

Post by matsemann »

drcongo wrote: post #30
thomaspaulmann wrote: post #22

It’s easy to blame Apple here and to some degree they are responsible for scammers aren’t banned from the App Store. However, why isn’t somebody complaining who got scammed? Don’t they want $400 back? Maybe they do a simple refund and that’s enough for them but there should be some feedback loop to detect scams quickly before they climb the App Store charts.

Literal victim blaming.

I think you're misrepresenting his post. He isn't blaming the victims of being scammed, but wondering why Apple hasn't noticed or taken action after they probably (/hopefully) are getting lots of chargeback and complaints from users buying this broken app.

Re: Apple watch keyboard developer put off by app store scammers

#34

Post by lloeki »

jansan wrote: post #3

What is the worst those scammers have to fear? Having their app banned from the App store? If so, this sounds like a very unethical, but amost risk free business model.

Theoretically, having their Apple-issued dev certificate revoked (IIUC which bans all apps tied to that certificate) and Apple dev account closed.

But I guess these folks have contingencies to create new dev accounts that look unrelated and still come out net positive of the dev account cost quickly.

Re: Apple watch keyboard developer put off by app store scammers

#36

Post by retSava »

thomaspaulmann wrote: post #22

It’s easy to blame Apple here and to some degree they are responsible for scammers aren’t banned from the App Store. However, why isn’t somebody complaining who got scammed? Don’t they want $400 back? Maybe they do a simple refund and that’s enough for them but there should be some feedback loop to detect scams quickly before they climb the App Store charts.

> there should be some feedback loop to detect scams quickly before they climb the App Store charts.

Well, that's the thing, isn't it? The app store (any app store) which has a review process and takes a great cut of revenue, should stand for quality and safety. Here, that's clearly not the case.

For another example, see Amazon problems with fake products.

Both Apple and Amazon are large enough and have so much money that you'd think they could spend some of those resources on handling the problem. Perhaps they do, but appears not.

Re: Apple watch keyboard developer put off by app store scammers

#38

Post by comboy »

fxtentacle wrote: post #31

FYI, in situations like this the best way is to: 1. Register your videos and images with the USCO. It'll cost 2. You can now file DMCA takedowns. Send one to Apple with the USCO registration ID and a copy of the image and a link to the app in question. 3. Apple will either immediately remove that fake app, or be liable for up to $350k in punitive damages for wilful infringement and lose all DMCA protection. 4. If App…

Some people want to create great, useful apps. That's what they want to do. They are willing to give away half of their earnings to different 3rd parties to just not deal with the bullshit. It's unlikely to be their full time job. They probably don't make that much money on it, cloning happens just when the app begins to make any reasonable profit.

So dealing with all your described is just not practical. Time is valuable. If somebody is creative and wants to provide some value, fighting with the system, preparing some documents, registrations hiring lawyers etc. is the last thing they want to and likely would rather abandon the project instead. Life is too short to deal with the bullshit.

Not to mention that even if what you said is very reasonable most developers will have no idea. It's scammers (efficient ones) that have to know something about copyright law, DMCAs and so on.

Problem is not that easy to solve. App stores can't spend too many hours on each app because there's tons of them, and if they would only invest time in helping those apps that provide enough profit to be worth it, that would create inequality and also many outrages over inevitable false positives.

That said there are of course many many things Apple could be doing better, especially given their fees. Also I wish subscription based model would just die. Should only be for cloud based services and wherever possible those should be optional. Or at least as simple thing as automatically not paying for months when you didn't open the app (with very few exceptions like storage services etc).

Btw, we should have some attribute for web that marks link as scam/negative. These tweets and HN homepage just made those scam apps easier to find.

Re: Apple watch keyboard developer put off by app store scammers

#39

Post by eXpl0it3r »

meibo wrote: post #11

Making a keyboard that has the selling point of "being good on the Apple Watch" seems like a fragile business model to begin with, when Apple's goal should be implementing the best possible keyboard. This has struck custom keyboard vendors in the past(e.g. Gboard stealing basically all custom keyboard market share by implementing stand-out features). Please correct me if I'm missing something. Hope the he can rectify…

Probably not infinitely sustainable, but as long as there's the gap in the market, you can very well try to push for being the best in that niche.

Re: Apple watch keyboard developer put off by app store scammers

#40

Post by pjc50 »

yarcob wrote: post #5

Oh my god, they don't even bother implementing the app any more... It reminds me of my first App Store experience. I made an app that was somewhat successful (about 2000€ a month, enough to pay for a students living expenses). Within short time, a chinese speaking developer cloned it. They copied the icon (slighlty different color), they copied the UI, they even copied all the text in the dialog boxes. They released…

Fortunately making an app that does the same thing as an existing app isn't copyright infringement - that would be far worse than the Amazon "one click" patent, as there would only be one company allowed to make a web browser, word processor, spreadsheet, etc.
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