

The App Store Spam Problem - ssclafani
http://www.marco.org/576865127

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stanleydrew
I know this is obvious, but it seems like if Apple doesn't want crappy apps
that don't take full advantage of all of the iPhone OS apis in the App Store
there are a couple of simple steps they could take before resorting to
something like the 3.3.1 change.

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mclin
Eg make an easy way to get a refund, like on the Android market.

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nooneelse
Apple's app store doesn't have refunding?

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elai
How easy is it to return most software once you've used it? All retail
shrinkwrap software, console or not, tends to be no returns once you actually
open/use it. Typically the only ones that allow you to return software are
indies with %110 guarantees and such not as marketing tools.

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tjr
_Apple’s reviewers are in a difficult position: any large-scale developer bans
in the App Store are likely to attract negative press, so they’re probably
reluctant to do any._

I don't get the impression that Apple is terribly concerned about negative
press, at least not with respect to App Store policies.

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potatolicious
Not to mention this would probably be received _well_ by the general public -
"Apple moves to curb scams and spams in App Store" and the such. They've
already shown they don't much care for developer good will :)

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not_an_alien
Doing that would be _acknowledging_ that there's a problem - and this is
something that will never be done.

Remember, their devices are _magical_ and Apple can never do anything wrong.

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roc
As if Apple had never admitted a problem in the App Store or Review process?

I seem to recall a number of letters and interviews in which they did exactly
that and quite a few policy, code and process changes at Apple to directly
address issues such as review turn-around time, policy reversals, per-version
ratings, only allowing reviews from actual purchasers, etc.

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ericz
How do they manage to block so many quality apps for whatever trivial terms
violations but then not have provisions to block these clearly infringing and
straight up scam apps?

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dalore
These apps clearly not infringing Apple's trademarks and copyrights, so they
are ok.</sarcasm>

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roc
I'm bemused to see developer opinion lining up so strongly behind the idea
that Apple _should_ apply their review judgment to block apps and/or ban
developers from the store for supposed transgressions that violate no written
policy or term of service.

It seems not so long ago popular opinion had Apple in the wrong for doing
exactly that.

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Vivtek
It's the perceived hypocrisy.

Apple either cares about app quality (their _stated_ reason for barring Flash)
or they don't (thus it would be fine to let the crapps stay) - but they want
to have it both ways. That's what people are down on.

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Vivtek
The spam apps are written in Objective C, C, C++, or Javascript, I hope.

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ryanhuff
I doubt it. If my "job" was to crank out as many spam apps as possible, I
would choose a tool that allows for the most efficient means (fast
turnaround). Today, straight obj c would probably be my last choice.

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pkulak
It's pretty easy to crank out an iPhone app in Objective C.

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Splines
Why isn't there a "ignore all apps by this developer" button?

This is one of the reasons why I like using AppSniper. If a developer has a
history of making crappy/spammy apps, I have no qualms with ignoring them now
and in the future.

I don't know if this is against Apple's TOS, but there's room for a better App
store browsing program (like AppSniper and BargainBin) that is targeted
towards not-crap programs. Having a developer black-list and a feedback
mechanism to nominate developers to this list could go a long way.

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raimondious
There's YC-funded Appsaurus, which tries to predict apps you like based on
what you tell it, but I didn't have a great experience with it.

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voidfiles
Doesn't this expose the fact that the app store walled garden isn't for the
protection of consumers, but for the protection of Apple?

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oweni
If the original owner of the copyrighted material (logos, design, etc.) issued
a DMCA takedown request to Apple wouldn't they have to remove it, or also be
culpable for the infringement? As it is, since they are reviewing all of the
apps, are they not already partially responsible?

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roc
Apple's position is that they're not reviewing the content for IP issues. I
don't know if there's precedent for that, but it strikes me as defensible.

And they do respond to takedown requests and there have been several issues
arising from such. See: "Edge" trademark brouhaha.

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mkramlich
Agree their store is now overflowing with garbage. A simple fix is for
somebody with taste to make a curated wrapper/filter around it. Imagine a
site/tool which worked otherwise just like the App Store, except that whenever
you search or browse, you won't see any garbage. Obviously garbage is
subjective, so the trick is for people with similar tastes to coalesce around
a single curator. Arguably the independent review sites already fill this
role, they just need to support all needed use cases, be consistent with their
filtering, and scale up their workflow so they can bless all the new non-
garbage that comes out.

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gte910h
Apple needs to restructure the app store so people can make other app stores
out of it, and so a better model can be found.

Honestly, their AppStore app (especially on the iPad, but also on the iPhone)
violates their HID all over the place, and is a pretty annoying app because of
it.

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mitchellhislop
I wish there was a good model between Apple's app store, and Androids. It cant
be totally open (because then you get apps that hack bank accounts), but too
closed (see: Apple) and you run into really ironic issues, like the one Marco
brings up.

HN, what's in between?

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blasdel
The real problem is that pure content is being treated as an application.

There needs to be a separate whole section of the iTunes Store for this shit:
Music, Movies, TV, Apps, _Interactive_. It'd come with its own Webkit-based
development environment, like Apple is doing for their new iTunesLP format
(and did for Dashboard). The people making these pointless apps don't really
give a shit about integrating with the phone, and they aren't doing anything
they couldn't do in Mobile Safari -- they're in the App Store to get paid.

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campnic
Essentially, this is a problem with any "recommendation" system that is based
on tagging. There have got to be better ways.

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RyanMcGreal
This is an opportunity for Android to race ahead of Apple - by winning at
recommendation.

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jokermatt999
Good luck. Have you used the Android store? I love Android, but the store
could use a lot of work. I haven't used the apple store, so I can't compare,
but they Android market is a mess.

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nooneelse
Have you tried AppBrain? I like being able to do the shopping on a larger
screen and also manage lists of recommendations and future possibilities.

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soldarnal
What percentage of apps are spam? If it is a rather large percentage, it seems
like Apple has an incentive to keep them around so that they can advertise
they have x thousands of apps. But maybe it is not that large.

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pkulak
This is why it's important that Android gives you 24 hours to "return" any app
you buy for a refund.

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credo
One of my apps was also targeted by a "spammer" last year, but that spam
wasn't as egregious as some of these examples.

For me, one key takeaway from Marco's post is - don't just be annoyed, "the
proper procedure is to send a clear notice to appstorenotices@apple.com citing
your intellectual property and which apps are infringing it"

However, I'm not sure how responsive Apple will be to these infringement-
notices.

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elai
Guys, it's really easy to remove IP law infringing app once you ask apple to
do so. Apple is under the impression that it's between two people, but if the
'defendant' doesn't really have any solid defense whatsoever, apple will
remove it quite quickly. Actually this can be abused, as in that story between
two app developers who developed a similar game, which in a real court would
be totally fine, but one sent a bogus complaint to apple about the other and
being of small resources, the developer couldn't fight it and got his
application removed.

I also remember that apple actually quite regularly blocks trademarks in
keywords, for example, there was this Yahtzee like game that was being
developed by one developer I knew, a valid use for a keyword 'Yahtzee' and was
rejected due to Yahtzee being not allowed.

So this kind of copycat keyword infringing stuff although looks bad, is quite
easy to fix if you just send an email.

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iaskwhy
I wrote about something similar but in smaller scale back in March and the
apps I talked about were gone after a few days. I'm pretty sure it wasn't
because of my text but might have been because I reported those apps as spam
on the App Store.

Here's the link: [http://iaskwhy.tumblr.com/post/453478706/apple-allows-
spam-o...](http://iaskwhy.tumblr.com/post/453478706/apple-allows-spam-on-the-
app-store)

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jsz0
Not sure this is really a big problem. The top apps are the right ones. 5 star
ranking + 8000 reviews. Not much confusion there. I hope Apple does clean up
the App Store more in the future but for now I don't see it as being a major
problem. Certainly no worse than the typical Google search.

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kaddar
My biggest annoyance about the apple store is when an application is updated
and adds advertisements or removes features, there is no way to revert the
application or know that the update is bad. Apple provides no path to complain
about this, either.

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veeti
The Android Market has a similar problem with trash apps like
<http://www.appbrain.com/app/com.prettyapp.s9.girls> (NSFW?).

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joubert
The intekone example: the app names indicate they're cheat sheets.

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not_an_alien
Apple is lazy.

