Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Fraudulent Apps Found In Apple's Store

Posted by samzenpus on from the one-bad-apple dept.

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.

6 of 89 comments (clear)

  1. Clearly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    You're tapping it wrong.

  2. This is news.... because? by bhlowe · · Score: 5, Interesting

    2 lameware apps out of 1.2 million apps? I'm guessing people will get over it.

  3. Walled Garden = Stewardship by EndlessNameless · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --

    ---
    According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
  4. It does what? by SeaFox · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?

  5. Re:For the Love of Cock! by seoras · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  6. Re:Quickoffice Pro Is not a "scam app" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you had even went as far as reading the summary, you would have seen that these apps are not the actual quickoffice owned by google (and since discontinued), but scam apps designed to get people to pay for them but do not deliver the advertised functionality. They are blatant ripoffs, down to stealing google's logo and including bogus support links to avoid attention.