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Tell HN: An app is silently installing itself on my iPhone every day

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Re: Tell HN: An app is silently installing itself on my iPhone every day

#71

Post by altairprime »

donkey_brains wrote: post #28
_-x-_ wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I think the latter is more likely than the former. Perhaps a server side bug that's silently downloading the app on any device that's installed it previously?

But why this one specific app and no others?

Maybe Apple typo’d an app id incorrectly for some iOS core app thing in 26.4.2 and the one-character error is this app? I don’t know that anyone’s done a ‘likelihood of collision’ analysis on appstore unique IDs yet. Certainly I could see iOS having a “must be on the device” system set up for apps like Phone and Settings that has a last-ditch of reinstalling it if somehow deleted. Would be especially interesting if some core app that can’t normally be deleted is currently unprotected (back up your device locally first!).

Re: Tell HN: An app is silently installing itself on my iPhone every day

#72

Post by powersnail »

trueno wrote: post #68
cortesoft wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is fascinating. I am very curious to find out what the actual cause of this turns out to be.

same. i get blasted with ads for this app on whatever platform, never installed it myself. the amount of promotions + this = my underdeveloped brain is so ready to assume the worst here. been a while since i used my pitchfork & i'm here for the riot. if it is, in fact, something nefarious at play that would be a pretty crazy 2026 era exploit. but i'm certain it's a bug/artifact of some sort that, for whatever reason,…

Maybe the developer was using Headspace as part of the test data and it bled into production?

It's hard to imagine what Headspace would like to achieve if this were an exploit executed by them. It's so salient, that it makes no sense to do on purpose. At least some portion of Apple employees and their families are going to be affected by this, and this would escalate to the legal department immediately.

My money is on Apple being the buggy one here.

Re: Tell HN: An app is silently installing itself on my iPhone every day

#73

Post by speedgoose »

ddxv wrote: post #64

If anyone wants to browse some of the SDKs in headspace: https://appgoblin.info/apps/493145008/sdks I see normal development and tracking SDKs. If anyone sees something interesting let me know.

The Facebook Ads SDK in a mental health app isn’t normal. Or shouldn’t.

Even analytics SDKs is a bit weird to see. Are Amplitude or Sentry hosting data with a healthcare compliant infrastructure ? I won’t bet. Are those SDKs for sure not leaking health care data? It can be inadvertently, especially with Sentry. But I really wonder about why people feel the need to track so much. Do they **** in front of PowerPoint slides showing the tracking data or is it to sell user data?

Re: Tell HN: An app is silently installing itself on my iPhone every day

#76

Post by snailmailman »

csomar wrote: post #66

> Does anyone understand how or why this is happening? They are drowning in tech debt. Here are two main issues I have with my iPhone/iOS: I can't search for the telegram app. It doesn't show up. It shows fine on the iPad. Also just a few minutes ago, app search decided not to work. I usually use it to pull my Wallet to pull my card. It was an awkward moment as I had no idea where the wallet app actually is. I have l…

Regarding the telegram app I’d check iOS settings->apps->telegram->search and make sure “show app in search” is checked

You can intentionally hide apps from search. If you did this, it’s not very obvious that its hidden from search unless you dig for the setting. Similarly, “hidden” apps refuse to show up in search results anywhere, even in settings.

Re: Tell HN: An app is silently installing itself on my iPhone every day

#77

Post by verisimi »

Side point, re this:

> Automatic downloads are turned off

Isn't it funny that we're so used to the misuse of language (ie lies) that this isn't even a point? I'm talking about software flags to represent your choices, that are merely an 'aspirational intention' and don't actually correlate with reality.

In my world, it shouldn't be possible to override 'turned off automatic downloads'. 'Off' shouldn't be a pacifier for the user, while Apple, Google or whoever can continue installing whatever they like. This isn't what words mean. There isn't actually a choice, but it misleads you into thinking there is. I'm sure there are legal words around this in the "ownership" contract, but "off" can't really mean "on".

Re: Tell HN: An app is silently installing itself on my iPhone every day

#78

Post by rkachowski »

speedgoose wrote: post #73
ddxv wrote: post #64

If anyone wants to browse some of the SDKs in headspace: https://appgoblin.info/apps/493145008/sdks I see normal development and tracking SDKs. If anyone sees something interesting let me know.

The Facebook Ads SDK in a mental health app isn’t normal. Or shouldn’t. Even analytics SDKs is a bit weird to see. Are Amplitude or Sentry hosting data with a healthcare compliant infrastructure ? I won’t bet. Are those SDKs for sure not leaking health care data? It can be inadvertently, especially with Sentry. But I really wonder about why people feel the need to track so much. Do they **** in front of PowerPoint sl…

They are normal. They generally want to know if the ad spend resulted in an install. Health care data is radioactive and they would be fucking up very hard if sending this to an analytics service.

Re: Tell HN: An app is silently installing itself on my iPhone every day

#80

Post by whilenot-dev »

I think it's worth mentioning that you had the app installed around a year ago, as I can imagine some "restore from backup" scenario at play.

I'm currently with a 13 mini (26.4.2), never had this app installed, and am not encountering this issue.

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