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Fraudulent Apps Found In Apple's Store
snydeq writes Angry support queries citing problems with mystery iOS apps has led InfoWorld's Simon Phipps to discover the existence of several scamware apps in Apple's App Store. "If you're a scammer looking to make a fast buck, it appears that [Apple's App Store] process can be defeated," Phipps reports. "The questions originated from a support link for a $2.99 app in Apple's iTunes Store," which pointed angry customers to the Apache OpenOffice community, which doesn't even have an iOS app. The app in question, Quickoffice Pro, "simply displays a gray screen with the word Tap. When you tap the screen, the app exits." Further investigation has uncovered two other scam apps thus far.
You're tapping it wrong.
2 lameware apps out of 1.2 million apps? I'm guessing people will get over it.
This is where Apple can provide value to their customers by managing the ecosystem.
They should be more than capable of issuing refunds to anyone who was scammed, remotely nuking the app, and punishing the publisher in an appropriate manner.
If they do all of those things, it justifies some of their policies, at least for mainstream users.
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According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
How does an app with no functionality get through the approval process to start with? This isn't a case of the app having a secret feature of calling home or installing malware. I mean, if it doesn't do anything how could anyone have reviewed the app to begin with?
It's getting boring here on Slashdot, this shift from Microsoft bashing to Apple bashing.
The article's making it to front page are becoming very one sided, pro-Google/Android and anti-Apple.
Only several out of a million+ Apps?
So a few wild animals jump over into the walled garden, easy enough to chase them out and plug that hole.
It opens, you tap it, and it closes. You can't get much quicker than that. What's the issue?
XDInd
Quickoffice Pro is a useful program i've been using since I purchased an iPhone 3G. It recently had a bad update that broke it, a mistake on the publisher's part no doubt, but not a scam. Honestly this article reads way to joyously consists of way too little research on the subject.
It's like some people want IOS to suck in the same ways Android does; sorry folks! It sucks in it's own ways.
Nobody of any intellectual merit uses iDevices
That's the dumbest fucking thing I've read today.
not prevented, just greatly reduced.
Though even just looking at raw numbers isn't even fair. Apppl's store inventory dwarfs all of the others, and still numerically has fewer scams. It ought to work the other way around unless the wall is performing very effectively.
But bottom line here is some reviewers just got fired, and those that remain were harshly threatened. Reminds me of the recent peer reviewed journals that got caught with some lazy reviewers rubber stamping to boost their productivity numbers.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
As the versions of iOS increase, many of the apps that I purchased don't even work anymore and are still on the app store.
Perhaps the developer just forgot about them, or couldn't be bothered spending the time or money to update them to more current iOS versions.
It seems that there are a lot of abandoned apps out there.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
I love the Tim Cook reference.
Ezekiel 23:20