Mobile app developer Kosta Eleftheriou has a new calling that goes beyond software development: taking on what he sees as a rampant scam problem ruining the integrity of Apple’s App Store.
Eleftheriou, who created the successful Apple Watch keyboard app FlickType, has for the last two weeks been publicly criticizing Apple for lax enforcement of its App Store rules that have allowed scam apps, as well as apps that clone popular software from other developers, to run rampant. These apps enjoy top billing in the iPhone marketplace, all thanks to glowing reviews and sterling five-star ratings that are largely fabricated, he says.
I’ve been saying it for ten years: the application store model is fundamentally broken, because the owner of the application store benefits from people gaming and cheating the system. In this case, Apple profits from every scam application or subscription sold, and since the App Store constitutes a huge part of Apple’s all-important services revenue, Apple has no incentive to really tackle issues like this.
Here’s what going to happen, based on my immutable pattern recognition skills: there will be more press outcry over this developer’s specific issue until Apple eventually sends out a public apology statement and sort-of addresses this specific issue. American tech media – which are deeply embedded in Apple’s ecosystem and depend on being in Apple’s good graces – will praise Apple’s response, and claim the situation has been resolved. Their next batch of review units and press invites from Apple are on their way.
And a few weeks or months later, another developer suffers from the same or similar issues, rinse, repeat.
The problem is not individual App Store rules or App Store reviewers having a bad day – the paradigm itself is fundamentally broken, and until the tech industry and us as users come to terms with that, these repetitive stories will keep popping up, faux press outrage and all.
Not much more than :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPnz7DjM4CE
Undoubtedly a problem. So what is the solution? The developer is saying Apple needs to be more active in enforcing the rules. Which means taking a more active role in being a gate-keeper, something I gather you object to in the first place.
siraf72,
We should strive to keep things simple, competitive, and democratic. IMHO the old brick and mortar model was best. Every store could set standards for what belongs in their own stores, but they could not block or prevent owners from going to other stores, consumer should have an explicit right to choose the stores they want to use. Monopolies are always harmful and should never be tolerated.
On the other hand, people are free to buy the oh-so-many alternatives to Apple’s products. Like… like… Google or Microsoft. And what are the tactics of these two behemoths ? Well…
The cops are lazy and inefficient and crime has gone up.
Let’s abolish the cops
Not sure that makes sense 🙂
The security risk from a malicious hack of your mobile device is potentially far more dangerous than a hack of your old desktop PC. Mobile devices know where you are, where you’ve been, who your contacts are, it’s the device you make telephone calls with, it has a built in microphone and camera, it increasingly is how to pay for things so it has all your card, account and finance info, and you carry it everywhere. Far, far more people use mobile devices compared to desktop PCs and almost all of them manage their own individual devices. The moment everybody and anybody is free to set up distribution systems that can freely install apps on those devices is the moment when all personal security would vanish. If you do not believe that there are an awful lot of predators out there waiting to pounce once the App Store gatekeeper role is abolished then you are a naive fool. The existing model is far from perfect, it needs constant improvement but the idea that getting rid of it will be some sort of gateway to freedom is just plain daft. It would be the opposite.
Strossen,
1) The presumption that apple and google are superior to would be competing stores is not well founded. There’s been an abundance of crap and even malware in both official app stores. If the market were more competitive, it is quite plausible some competitors would distinguish themselves through higher quality standards and more professional product catalogues. I’m sure not the only one who thinks both apple and google have set the bar pretty low.
2) 3rd party stores use same application sandboxing and permission models that the official stores have. You’re not creating new privilege escalation vulnerabilities that didn’t already exist with the official store.
3) Sideloading shouldn’t imply or require root access (the fact that it does on IOS is an apple-specific deficiency but not an intrisic prerequisite).
4) These choice of which stores are allowed shouldn’t be yours (or mine) to make, The whole premise of capitalism is that consumers are entitled to make choices for themselves. This notion that someone else should be entitled to make decisions about what we can do with our property and where we’re allowed to buy is extremely maligned with the principals of freedom. I’m going to have to disagree very strong with you on this.
The reference to “The whole premise of capitalism is that consumers are entitled to make choices” is interesting and telling, and it explains your inability to understand consequences. Free market ideology (which all attacks on App Store gatekeeping more or less boil down to) sounds so seductively logical that it can never even understand, or even see, the unpleasant consequences that may ensue from it’s implementation.
Let’s try to think this through logically.
Should owners of mobile devices be free to install apps from anywhere and delivered by anyone?
If that were to be the case then it is completely obvious that the digital predators, which as we all know exist in large numbers and are very devious and persistent, would inevitably use that ‘freedom’ to hack, scam, blackmail and disrupt hundreds of millions of people.
So to prevent that mass assault on people’s mobile devices and lives some sort of protection and vetting of online apps is necessary, to screen out the predators as best we can.
The question is who should do that?
As I understand it your position – and it’s a classic free market ideologue position – is that an open and unrestricted market would allow multiple sources of apps and eventually the good app stores would prevail through free consumer choice. Let’s leave aside for the moment the fact that the good ones prevailing would only come about through a hugely painful process of trial and error likely to leave lasting damage in hundred of millions of people’s lives, and instead focus on what this evolution of the market place towards good app stores would actually involve, which is the adoption of effective gatekeeping functionality: i.e back to square one via a lot of pain.
Ideologically committed App Store free marketeers are small in number but highly vocal. They generally come from the techie culture, that is people who are fascinated by the mechanics of tech itself rather than with what you can with it (which is what non-techies focus on). The championing of the overthrow of the gate keeper App Store model seems to me to be mostly about a strange sort of nostalgia for the old PC days when everybody could install anything on, and in fact do what they wanted with, their PCs but which in reality meant that the mass of ordinary users were disempowered, insecure, confused and dependent on techies to help them stabilise and use their PCs effectively and securely. Back then techies were at the centre of tech culture because ordinary people needed them, now they are a small special interest group far from the centre of things because the current App Store system means everyone can install apps and maintain stable devices without their help. It’s that that causes them to rankle against the app stores and gate keeper system because it renders them irrelevant.
Strossen,
Let’s clear something up strait away, there’s no “inability to understand consequences”, only differences of opinion.
Protecting people from themselves is always the excuse that oppressive governments and now days even corporations use clamp down on our rights. I vote for freedom. More often than not the restrictions are thinly veiled power grabs that take away my rights while not substantially contributing to my safety.
It’s pretty obvious to me: each store is responsible for screening the goods in their stores. Not complicated.
No gate keepers. When I go out to buy things, I don’t have police telling me what stores I’m allowed to go to for my own safety. I find the notion of authority figures dictating consumer rights extremely regressive. It’s none of their business. They can make recommendations and issue warnings, but ultimately our right to choose as consumers must not be impinged. Huge tech oligopolies should not be allowed to single-handedly overthrow capitalistic norms by hard coding digital restrictions into our technology.
We are a minority, although this is in large part because the would-be competitors have been marginalized by the very restrictions we are protesting. Consider that Cydia was extremely popular with iphone users before apple’s steps to systematically block competitors became effective. I think a quality app store that supported both IOS and android would be very popular among consumers and could offer unique benefits. Furthermore more viable app store competition could do wonders to break up the IOS/android duopoly.
What I find frustrating is that, ideologically, those of us advocating for consumer rights are not impinging on anyone’s right to choose the official app store. But those fighting us are are impinging on everyone else’s right to choose alternatives 🙁
Apple: Are they paying us 30% of everything they make?
Pawn: Yes.
Apple: Then where’s the problem again?