
Apple pulled Dash from the App Store for “review manipulation” - davidcelis
https://blog.kapeli.com/apple-removed-dash-from-the-app-store#what-happened
======
0x0
Sounds pretty heavy-handed to ban the whole account for alleged review vote
stuffing. Even if there was actual review spam going on, couldn't this be
solved by just removing all existing reviews and blocking further reviews, so
the app could be downloaded by searching the app store (or via a direct itunes
link)? Brutal.

It also opens up a massive blackmail opportunity. Pay up or we will review-
spam your app with 10000 fake 5 stars so Apple kicks you out. It's reverse
xrumer all over again. Nice.

Lots of speciality and companion apps don't make any revenue from app store
sales and don't care about rankings. I'm sure there's a fairly big subset of
app store developers that would be happy to run their apps unlisted and
possibly unreviewed, since there is no other way to deploy an ios app to the
general public.

~~~
ncr100
As I replied elsewhere in this thread - Bogdan is being requested by Apple to
claim Apple was Correct in Banning him.

Apple found a Niece of Bogdan's for whom he bought an Apple Dev account &
shared test devices, had fraud on their app review.

But Apple did not notify him they had "linked his account" to hers - and he
got mysteriously banned.

I think Apple is making things worse, in this situation.

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trizic
So what stops someone who is against X app, pays for clickworkers to leave
fake reviews to get the app pulled? Would the same thing happen if fake
reviews were left for a major company like Google/Microsoft/Dropbox in the app
store?

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KingMob
Freedom to install/use is one of those cases where the web beats apps, hands-
down. Check out devdocs.io in your browser for a free alternative. Works just
fine on mobile, too.

I love it, and after hooking it up to Alfred, I can search 90% of my commonly-
needed docs with a single interface.

~~~
arvinsim
Doesn't devdocs.io require you to open it before going offline to work?

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captainmuon
Would this be the time to explore selling iOS apps outside of the app store?

Offer users a binary download (like when you buy the desktop app outside of
the store). Then have a little tool that you run on your Mac, connect the iOS
device, enter your developer credentials (since this is a developer's tool the
user likely has them, otherwise registration is quick and free)... and the
tool sideloads the app to the iOS device.

~~~
saurik
I build what I believe is currently the most popular (mostly for being free
and solid: Cydia Impactor) simple tool for this, and will point out that apps
sideboards in this fashion are extremely limited as you don't have access to
basic iOS functionality that requires special profiles, such as push
notifications, and you can only have up to three such apps installed on an iOS
10 device at a time, each of which will have a certificate that expires after
only 7 days. (Apple has been slowly clamping down on these limits; it used to
be such apps expired after 30 days, then they rate limited free app
identifiers to 10 per week, then they made the apps expire after 7 days, and,
most recently, you are limited to 3 total installed apps.)

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ncr100
Phil Schiller accuses Kapeli of fraud:

[http://www.macrumors.com/2016/10/06/dash-pulled-for-app-
stor...](http://www.macrumors.com/2016/10/06/dash-pulled-for-app-store-review-
manipulation/)

"...

I hope that you understand the importance of protecting the App Store from
repeated fraudulent activity.

Thank you, Phil"

~~~
cpncrunch
I don't see anything obviously wrong in any of the Dash reviews (I think this
is the correct app):

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:1e3kQGL...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:1e3kQGLIpDMJ:dash-
api-docs.appstor.io/app-reviews+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca)

It also seems somewhat unlikely that a developer with such great reviews would
deliberately trash his competitors.

I wonder if Apple's automated fraud detection system detected it as a false
positive, simply because he got so many good reviews?

~~~
Hydraulix989
Who are Dash's competitors anyway?

~~~
ncr100
None AFAIK. Google search, Visual Studio / Other IDE Intellisense features.

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mjbamford
Apple, how on earth is this good for existing customers? You're not protecting
us - you're discouraging us. We've paid for the application and now can't get
access to it. If there's an alternative channel, I'll never buy from an Apple
app store again.

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jbverschoor
Yet some how my comment got -4 points...

I can only applaud Apple for doing this

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pervycreeper
He could embarrass Apple by releasing the app on Android.

