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The Mac App Store Is Full of Scams (howtogeek.com)
Over the years, Apple may have improved security, filters, and screening process of apps for its Mac's App Store, but even today things the quality of fraudulent apps continue to not only seep through its gatekeepers, but often times outnumber the good apps. How To Geek did some investigation over this and published the findings yesterday in a story titled, "Don't Be Fooled: The Mac App Store Is Full of Scams". It didn't take long for the publication to find scam apps on Apple's marquee app store for Mac computers. A search for "Microsoft Excel", for instance, returns "Office Bundle" made by a third-party. The app offers templates -- and just that -- for $30. Same is the case with any Office suite application. This might not seem as a real problem to many, but as How to Geek points out, there is one more problem: almost all these apps have icons and title names that are similar to those of Microsoft's, and Apple has had no issues with that. From the article: Let's be blunt: these customers were ripped off, and Apple pocketed $10 each (Editor's note: Apple charges 30 percent on all transactions on App Store(. And you'll only see these comments if you scroll past the two five star reviews that mention the word "app" numerous times. All of these fakes use Microsoft brands like Office, Word, and Excel in the product names. The logos aren't one-to-one copies of Microsoft's official logos, but they're almost always the correct color and letter (blue "W" for Word, green "E" for Excel, etcetera).
Excel's logo is a green X, not E.
Let's be frank here, if you can't be assed to look at the screenshots and read anything, hell, do more than just look at the icon before pressing "buy", you're being a moron, and you deserve to be scammed. This isn't Apple's responsibility, it's yours, and yours alone to do the absolute minimum amount of "research" (if it can be called that) before spending money. I thought this was called common sense; apparently it's a rare and valuable skill.
30% of 30 dollars is 9 dollars, not 10.
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Caveat emptor!
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Let's be fair for a moment here...
1) It's not Apple's job to police Microsoft's trademarks - that's Microsoft's job. Same with any other trademark that the store owner does not own or control.
2) If the worst you get is an app that has a semi-misleading title that sells you nothing but MS Office templates (for $30? Caveat Emptor, eh?), then it's miles better than the outright malware and data-harvesting apps to be found in other stores. Also, did the author bother to read the description of the item before buying it? Pretty sure that if an app only says "Office Bindle" and has little-to-no description of the product, it's probably going to be a crap purchase.
This is going to sound a bit trollish, but this is the Internet, FFS... show some brains before you buy.
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Buying M$ from an Apple store, that's just stupid.
To be fair, sometimes you're stuck with doing just that (e.g. your company issues Mac laptops, which is nice, but uses MS Office on them, which is not nice.) For instance, I get and use the Microsoft RDP client because 1) I'm cheap (it's $0.00 in the App Store), and 2) it does what I need it to do for the occasional/rare Windows server that I get asked to go fix.
Buying fake M$ from an Apple store, is utterly moronic.
Now this, I can agree with.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
But you wouldn't expect to go into a physical Apple Store and have to inspect the merchandise to make sure it isn't fake, would you? It's up to the owner of a store to protect its reputation by ensuring the quality of the merchandise sold there. If Apple wants to give an experience equivalent to buying gear out of a cardboard box in an alley, that's up to them, but I'm not sure that's the smart move.
Oh no... it's the future.
So, they find a handful of scam apps, and suddenly they make the jump to "The Mac App store is full of scams"?
I'm not saying this isn't a problem, or that the problem of scam apps doesn't exist, but the article never actually says how many fraudulent apps they found, what is the proportion of fraudulent apps to legitimate apps, or how does this compare to other stores (Google Play, Steam...). The jump from "some apps are a fraud" to "The store is full of Scams" is never explained.
This is just another "OMG! APPLE!" piece with very little substance.
This problem is unavoidable. If you have something popular, people will always try to extract a quick buck from it, legitimately or not. As long as it doesn't spiral out of control, and consumers are protected (IIRC, Apple has a refund policy for app purchases), I'd say this isn't as big of a problem as the article tries to make it.
A standard Brick and Mortar store isn't quite the same, though.
Think of the Apple App Store (and Google Play, whatever MSFT still has running, etc) not as typical stores, but as consignment shops, which is essentially what they are. Put with the proper analogy, it makes a lot more sense, no?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
The Mac App Store is a thorn in the side of basically everyone. The promise was that it would be kind of like the iOS app store and you'd have a one-stop shop to find the things that you want. Installation would be easy-peasy, and you'd get Apple's famous quality control as part of the deal, etc., etc.
The store just makes things worse. The apps are significantly restricted in their ability in the name of safety, so whole categories of applications won't ever be found there (Little Snitch, for instance). The store is as hard to search as the iOS counterpart, so you're just as likely to search on google for an app as the app store. The whole system reeks of neglect. The whole thing feels like a letdown whether you're a developer or a user.
So are scams a surprise? Not really. The store just feels like work that Apple felt that it HAD to do, rather than something that they were excited to do. As a Mac user and general Apple proponent, I really think the Mac App Store is an embarrassment. Either put some time and money and people into it, or shut it down.
Technically yes, but people treat it more like iTunes or a real store, i.e. somewhere curated and safe they can go to buy legit stuff. They may be wrong to do that in some sense, but Apple certainly doesn't slap a "buyer beware" sticker on every app either.
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As both a developer and customer, I can assure you that apps are vetted. Despite this article claiming "scam" it doesn't appear to break any rules. It's just not worth the money. And Apple specifically don't set the prices.
I buy from the App Store if the App I want is available there because I'm guaranteed a refund if the app does not meet expectations. That is not true if you buy an app directly.
And because I can be pretty sure the app is not malware. The level of vetting, and the sandbox pretty much ensure that.
People aren't rubes because some asshole on Slashdot with no experience of the topic says they are.