App store shenanigans(cdixon.org)
cdixon.org
App store shenanigans
http://cdixon.org/2011/04/01/app-store-shenanigans/
35 comments
I think thee crappy apps are mostly a scam and hurt Apple and all of us devs. Sure, Flashlight is trivial but at least it works. Night Vision is a true lie and feels like adware/spyware is invading the IOS world.
Apple knows about these apps and exploits (and various other exploits), yet they do little to get rid of them. Apps like these should be prohibited by the guidelines. Nobody needs hundreds of apps that serve absolutely no purpose at all besides attempt to scam people out of 99¢.
Apple doesn't do much about them because the issues aren't in the public eye and from the media's perspective, they're not very newsworthy so I doubt much will change along these lines. It's not like these are new issues by any stretch of the imagination.
So yeah, while this does hurt us devs to some extent, it has little negative effect on Apple, IMO.
Apple doesn't do much about them because the issues aren't in the public eye and from the media's perspective, they're not very newsworthy so I doubt much will change along these lines. It's not like these are new issues by any stretch of the imagination.
So yeah, while this does hurt us devs to some extent, it has little negative effect on Apple, IMO.
> 2.3 Apps that do not perform as advertised by the developer will be rejected
> 2.11 Apps that duplicate apps already in the App Store may be rejected, particularly if there are many of them, such as fart, burp, flashlight, and Kama Sutra apps.
They ARE prohibited by the guidelines, and I'm surprised they get approved.
> 2.11 Apps that duplicate apps already in the App Store may be rejected, particularly if there are many of them, such as fart, burp, flashlight, and Kama Sutra apps.
They ARE prohibited by the guidelines, and I'm surprised they get approved.
I've worked with a lot of applications that have bought installs, because that was how my last company, Flurry, made money.
In my experience, an application that buys installs but lacks broad appeal falls off of the top lists as fast as it bought its way there. If it's up there long enough for Chris Dixon to notice, it's because there's a significant number of people who actually want the thing.
Chris's line of criticism both assumes that everyone's like us - they aren't, and there's a substantial demand for what you and I might consider 'crap'. The criticism also assumes that without this sort of gaming, the App Store would somehow be a meritocracy, which is ridiculous. Take away the install-purchasers, and the overwhelming majority of applications that appear on a 'top' list are there because a) they're already ridiculously well-known elsewhere, like Facebook, or b) they were previously given exposure on the front page of the App Store due to an editorial decision by an unknown Apple employee.
I suspect Apple will close off this particular line of business eventually - there's got to be a reason why they're tracking just how often and how long we use our applications, and I suspect it'll be for a usage-based revamping of the 'top free' and 'top paid' lists. But when that happens, the top lists still won't be fair, they'll just be a better reflection of Apple's editorial tastes.
In my experience, an application that buys installs but lacks broad appeal falls off of the top lists as fast as it bought its way there. If it's up there long enough for Chris Dixon to notice, it's because there's a significant number of people who actually want the thing.
Chris's line of criticism both assumes that everyone's like us - they aren't, and there's a substantial demand for what you and I might consider 'crap'. The criticism also assumes that without this sort of gaming, the App Store would somehow be a meritocracy, which is ridiculous. Take away the install-purchasers, and the overwhelming majority of applications that appear on a 'top' list are there because a) they're already ridiculously well-known elsewhere, like Facebook, or b) they were previously given exposure on the front page of the App Store due to an editorial decision by an unknown Apple employee.
I suspect Apple will close off this particular line of business eventually - there's got to be a reason why they're tracking just how often and how long we use our applications, and I suspect it'll be for a usage-based revamping of the 'top free' and 'top paid' lists. But when that happens, the top lists still won't be fair, they'll just be a better reflection of Apple's editorial tastes.
Are you saying Apple is tracking how often and how long users are using iOS apps?
Well, they're at least recording this information and syncing it with your computer - and I can't see why they'd bother recording it if they weren't also beaming it off to the mothership.
You can see this for yourself if you sync your phone with your laptop. Go to your phone's backup folder. On this Mac, it's ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/[big random string here]
Once you're in that directory, grep for the file that contains the sqlite database by looking for a text string used only in it: 'grep appLaunchCount *' works. You'll get one result. Pop that baby open with a sqlite editor - I use MesaSQLite, myself, but it doesn't matter which.
In the database's Scalars table, you'll see three columns - key, daysSince1970, and value. For each day in the last couple of weeks, and for each app you've used, there will be the following keys:
-- appActivationCount.com.[app name here]
-- appActiveTime.com.[app name here]
-- appBackgroundActiveTime.com.[app name here]
-- appLaunchCount.com.[app name here]
The values are the number of times the app was launched & activated that day, and how long the app was active in seconds. Not 100% sure on the difference between appActiveTime and appBackgroundActiveTime - perhaps the latter involves the app actively doing something while in the background?
There's a bunch of other data in that file as well, but that's the stuff relating to frequency and length of app usage.
You can see this for yourself if you sync your phone with your laptop. Go to your phone's backup folder. On this Mac, it's ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup/[big random string here]
Once you're in that directory, grep for the file that contains the sqlite database by looking for a text string used only in it: 'grep appLaunchCount *' works. You'll get one result. Pop that baby open with a sqlite editor - I use MesaSQLite, myself, but it doesn't matter which.
In the database's Scalars table, you'll see three columns - key, daysSince1970, and value. For each day in the last couple of weeks, and for each app you've used, there will be the following keys:
-- appActivationCount.com.[app name here]
-- appActiveTime.com.[app name here]
-- appBackgroundActiveTime.com.[app name here]
-- appLaunchCount.com.[app name here]
The values are the number of times the app was launched & activated that day, and how long the app was active in seconds. Not 100% sure on the difference between appActiveTime and appBackgroundActiveTime - perhaps the latter involves the app actively doing something while in the background?
There's a bunch of other data in that file as well, but that's the stuff relating to frequency and length of app usage.
Yes. People opt in to anonymous usage tracking when they turn on 'Genius for Apps'.
Whether you turn on Genius for Apps or not, the usage information's saved in your mobile backup. Perhaps in that case it's just not getting sent to Apple.
with enough responses, apple is effectively crowd-sourcing usage patterns (the usual error rates apply). so, if one app is getting reviews that are way out of line with the crowd-sourced usage pattern (when compared to other similar app's patterns) that might trigger a "lets go look at this one" flag at apple.
>>But when you look on the desktop web you see the overall ratings are vastly lower and that they seem to game the system by releasing "new versions" to reset their ratings and then probably paying people to write positive reviews
I've made this point in the past (though not about this app/company or about payments)
imo Apple made a mistake in resetting app ratings after every new update/release. Developers who release poor quality 1.0 apps benefit from the ratings reset and I can see why some people may see this as a benefit.
However, the two problems I see with the resets are
1. It makes it easier for companies to game the rating system
2. It is a disincentive for developers (of highly rated apps)to update their apps. I'm planning on an update for a recent iPad app. However, that update will reset the 4.5 rating obtained through the 271 ratings received by the 1.0 version of the app in the past five months.
I've made this point in the past (though not about this app/company or about payments)
imo Apple made a mistake in resetting app ratings after every new update/release. Developers who release poor quality 1.0 apps benefit from the ratings reset and I can see why some people may see this as a benefit.
However, the two problems I see with the resets are
1. It makes it easier for companies to game the rating system
2. It is a disincentive for developers (of highly rated apps)to update their apps. I'm planning on an update for a recent iPad app. However, that update will reset the 4.5 rating obtained through the 271 ratings received by the 1.0 version of the app in the past five months.
Here's a thought: show the rating as a 90 day rolling average with the option to view the all-time stats. Throw in additional logic to handle the cases where there are too few ratings in the last 90 days... then use the last n ratings (for some reasonable value of n), no matter how far back they go, for example.
That would seem to me to give the best of both worlds. If you release a crappy app and then later release a glorious update, you'll have to earn back your new ratings over time as old ones fall off the chart which encourages developers to release quality apps starting from day one.
That would seem to me to give the best of both worlds. If you release a crappy app and then later release a glorious update, you'll have to earn back your new ratings over time as old ones fall off the chart which encourages developers to release quality apps starting from day one.
Yeah, it seems like a simple reset isn't valuable.. makes more sense to weight the ratings over history.. so that ratings on the new version matter (much) more than ratings on the old versions.. but old ratings still count at a lower weight.. that way in your case you'd still be fine releasing a v2, but for apps that are consistently awful their rating wouldn't be so easy to pull up.
Another idea: Since Apple knows exactly how much money I've spent in their store, that signal can somehow also be weighed in with my reviews.
This means that reviews by people that have spent a fair amount in the app store would get a better/heavier scores than those that have not yet spent as much money in the store.
This means that reviews by people that have spent a fair amount in the app store would get a better/heavier scores than those that have not yet spent as much money in the store.
This would be susceptible to the same problems as Chris mentions in his post:
> Companies like TapJoy let you pay to get in the Top 25, and then once you are there you can get “organic” downloads by being on the toplists.
If they can arrange to actually buy enough copies of an application to get into the Top 25, reviews posted by those accounts would surely weigh very highly under your proposed scheme as well.
> Companies like TapJoy let you pay to get in the Top 25, and then once you are there you can get “organic” downloads by being on the toplists.
If they can arrange to actually buy enough copies of an application to get into the Top 25, reviews posted by those accounts would surely weigh very highly under your proposed scheme as well.
A more difficult question is how you solve problems in a gigantic marketplace like the App Store. Better verification of sellers? Verification of review comments? Limiting cross-linking of apps? Tougher review process by Apple?
All of these would engender more criticism against Apple for policing their "walled garden" but is there a better way to solve it?
All of these would engender more criticism against Apple for policing their "walled garden" but is there a better way to solve it?
Perhaps the same way one might solve a 'real world' (ie physical store) issue. You create the network equivalent of the 'Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval'.
Typically the way that works is that someone diligently looks at every app and provides a rating based clear and transparent metrics. They do this in a largely unsung fashion as early adopters or randomly curious people begin to validate that their ratings correlate strongly with actual quality.
Then, once they reach critical mass, the app vendors will attempt to corrupt them (or at least influence them) by sending them 'free' apps or 'previews' which don't exactly match what they actually ship. Depending on whether or not this new effort has been around the block before they will either lose all credibility once they highly rate and app where the 'review copy' was significantly different than the 'store copy.' Or they have some other fail mechanism (like not actually reviewing the app instead trusting some third party's opinion)
If they dodge that bullet they will begin to grow in influence as more and more people will start using their ratings but that will also increase the demand rate ("Why haven't you rated app Donglefritz yet?") now it will switch from being something they were doing because they and their friends were tired of all the crappy apps and gaming the app store ratings, and it will start feeling like work because they are feeling pressure to get more and more apps rated. Also apps they rate poorly will start complaining, and some of them might try to intimidate them with legal proceedings (justified or not).
Suddenly the value equation will be all pear shaped, they will want to stop but too many people are counting on them. They will want to find some way to 'monetize' all this work since they are getting poor reviews at their day job (or no sleep) because of all the time they are spending rating iPhone/pad apps. They start taking advertisements and have to deal with how an app they rate poorly actually gets lots of downloads because the same app is advertised in their tool or on their site. The ad isn't an endorsement but they need to figure out how to explain that to their customers who previously only had messages coming from them that were not paid for.
Typically it is at this point where they 'sell' their brand, apologize and move on with their new found wealth swearing that 'next time' they won't cave in like that. Their new owners will milk the brand by turning it into a pay for play mouth piece for app vendors which will easily double their investment (since the brands legitimacy will die more slowly than the value of the rankings).
Once the brand is completely discredited and usage has dropped it will quietly fold and disappear never to be heard from again.
Oh, I'm sorry you wanted a solution? :-)
Typically the way that works is that someone diligently looks at every app and provides a rating based clear and transparent metrics. They do this in a largely unsung fashion as early adopters or randomly curious people begin to validate that their ratings correlate strongly with actual quality.
Then, once they reach critical mass, the app vendors will attempt to corrupt them (or at least influence them) by sending them 'free' apps or 'previews' which don't exactly match what they actually ship. Depending on whether or not this new effort has been around the block before they will either lose all credibility once they highly rate and app where the 'review copy' was significantly different than the 'store copy.' Or they have some other fail mechanism (like not actually reviewing the app instead trusting some third party's opinion)
If they dodge that bullet they will begin to grow in influence as more and more people will start using their ratings but that will also increase the demand rate ("Why haven't you rated app Donglefritz yet?") now it will switch from being something they were doing because they and their friends were tired of all the crappy apps and gaming the app store ratings, and it will start feeling like work because they are feeling pressure to get more and more apps rated. Also apps they rate poorly will start complaining, and some of them might try to intimidate them with legal proceedings (justified or not).
Suddenly the value equation will be all pear shaped, they will want to stop but too many people are counting on them. They will want to find some way to 'monetize' all this work since they are getting poor reviews at their day job (or no sleep) because of all the time they are spending rating iPhone/pad apps. They start taking advertisements and have to deal with how an app they rate poorly actually gets lots of downloads because the same app is advertised in their tool or on their site. The ad isn't an endorsement but they need to figure out how to explain that to their customers who previously only had messages coming from them that were not paid for.
Typically it is at this point where they 'sell' their brand, apologize and move on with their new found wealth swearing that 'next time' they won't cave in like that. Their new owners will milk the brand by turning it into a pay for play mouth piece for app vendors which will easily double their investment (since the brands legitimacy will die more slowly than the value of the rankings).
Once the brand is completely discredited and usage has dropped it will quietly fold and disappear never to be heard from again.
Oh, I'm sorry you wanted a solution? :-)
It is not like the criticism has really hurt them any. I say go whole hog on it, and crack as many skulls as needed. If Apple is going to claim that they hold an iron fist over their customers' devices to deliver a better experience, they better actually deliver a better experience.
I think a simple flagging mechanism ("this is crap, Steve wouldn't want it in the store, take another look") would suffice. A supposedly curated app store should be enforcing a certain level of quality.
And if they're not doing it already, only publish reviews from accounts with a credit card.
And if they're not doing it already, only publish reviews from accounts with a credit card.
Sadly it's pretty easy to get fake or stolen credit card numbers. Even barring that, it's pretty easy to phish normal users (who all have credit cards on their accounts, as a sibling post points out) and use them to vote without their knowledge.
As far as "this is crap, go build something better" - that's tough to say when developers show high (albeit juked via cross-promotion) download numbers, and is also difficult for developers to stomach without some kind of objective measure of what makes for a good app.
As far as "this is crap, go build something better" - that's tough to say when developers show high (albeit juked via cross-promotion) download numbers, and is also difficult for developers to stomach without some kind of objective measure of what makes for a good app.
Good idea. The benefits of user flagging was one of the more interesting points from Matt Haughey's presentation at SXSW a couple of weeks ago. The entire thing is well worth watching actually:
http://vimeo.com/21043675
http://vimeo.com/21043675
Don't you need a credit card anyways to sign up? I had to have a credit card (or a gift card) when I made my iTunes account.
I'm wondering what would happen if people could pick between different app stores for their phone, much like how a Linux system allows you to get packages from multiple repositories.
Benefits to third parties: They could host their own "app store" and monetize however they like
Benefits to developers: They could put their products in any store that will take them, or perhaps try for Apple's "high quality" store for potentially(?) higher gains.
Benefits to Apple: They could police all they want and people's claims of "Too much policing!" would be groundless since consumers can just switch stores, though it may be harder to monetize
Is this how Android works with Amazon's "app store" competing with the Android marketplace? How is that working out?
Benefits to third parties: They could host their own "app store" and monetize however they like
Benefits to developers: They could put their products in any store that will take them, or perhaps try for Apple's "high quality" store for potentially(?) higher gains.
Benefits to Apple: They could police all they want and people's claims of "Too much policing!" would be groundless since consumers can just switch stores, though it may be harder to monetize
Is this how Android works with Amazon's "app store" competing with the Android marketplace? How is that working out?
yea, apple should just allow installation of third party apps outside the appstore (oho such an alien concept nowadays) and police the hell out of the official appstore.
Simply calculating stars using a weighted average would help this particular case. If ratings for previous versions counted for half as much as ratings for the current version, users would get a better sense from the overall rating.
That said, the mechanic of different versions being rated independently is very important. Apps can go from great to broken or broken to great in any given update.
As a user, you can dodge a lot of the spammy stuff by focusing on paid apps.
That said, the mechanic of different versions being rated independently is very important. Apps can go from great to broken or broken to great in any given update.
As a user, you can dodge a lot of the spammy stuff by focusing on paid apps.
Would it be illegal for Apple to ban the practice of cross-selling? (ie, take down apps and devs where it's clear that this is happening)
I think this would solve most of the problems. It's clear this is a burgeoning market, and it's smacks of blackhat-SEO tactics (artificial rank improvement by deceit).
I think this would solve most of the problems. It's clear this is a burgeoning market, and it's smacks of blackhat-SEO tactics (artificial rank improvement by deceit).
I thought the whole point of having a closed and reviewed platform is that you keep all this stuff out.
Hard to believe that these apps have been reviewed in anyway - the app store is starting to look like Facebook a few years ago
The only way to explain it is that Apple don't really care since they take their cut anyway.
Hard to believe that these apps have been reviewed in anyway - the app store is starting to look like Facebook a few years ago
The only way to explain it is that Apple don't really care since they take their cut anyway.
Chris calls out Tapjoy as a means to buy your way to the top 25; however, that's not entirely fair, imo. Increasing App Store ranking is a side effect of any promotion/advertising service. While the incentivized nature of Tapjoy brings into question the quality of these acquisitions, it's ultimately a fair and honest method to promote your app.
On the other hand, services like http://appmagenta.com and http://gtekna.com are downright shady. With enough money, you can buy enough fake downloads to reach the #1 spot in the App Store
On the other hand, services like http://appmagenta.com and http://gtekna.com are downright shady. With enough money, you can buy enough fake downloads to reach the #1 spot in the App Store
Everyday Apple approves around 900 NEW iOS and 50 new Mac Apps in the App Store[1]. In such a huge market, it is quite likely that some would try to game it.
The human curation approach falls flat on such a scale. Machine learning and natural language processing can help us in mining the App Store to detect anomalous behavior and improve the search and discovery of apps.
The statistical models of temporal distributions of ratings and rankings are still emerging and such hightlighting provide a useful resource to train the models. So if you see something, say something.
[1] http://twitter.com/iapps_in
The human curation approach falls flat on such a scale. Machine learning and natural language processing can help us in mining the App Store to detect anomalous behavior and improve the search and discovery of apps.
The statistical models of temporal distributions of ratings and rankings are still emerging and such hightlighting provide a useful resource to train the models. So if you see something, say something.
[1] http://twitter.com/iapps_in
I wonder if we'll see Google doing a significantly better job in the Android store?
This is an obvious extension to search engine optimization, and I'll bet the guys doing well at it are using many similar techniques to website optimizes.
Goggles web spam team can probably give some great advice to the "app spam team".
This is an obvious extension to search engine optimization, and I'll bet the guys doing well at it are using many similar techniques to website optimizes.
Goggles web spam team can probably give some great advice to the "app spam team".
It is indeed an extension of the "Website optimization for the search engine" or SEO as they call it. To a search engine developer, SEO means to improve the search engine for better output.
The fight against spam is a constantly evolving one and though some of the techniques from "web" search engine could be applied to the App store, there are unique differences between the two - e.g. the rating, download rankings are not directly analogous to page rank. So Google does seem to have some advantage, but the App store problem will need a fresh research approach.
The fight against spam is a constantly evolving one and though some of the techniques from "web" search engine could be applied to the App store, there are unique differences between the two - e.g. the rating, download rankings are not directly analogous to page rank. So Google does seem to have some advantage, but the App store problem will need a fresh research approach.
This happen at a much bigger scale really. At Amazon.com too for example. New software versions, camera models, etc. all get fresh ratings and comments, even though sometimes people do mention older versions in their comments.
My point is that it's not just the relatively small app developers, even the big names are playing this game routinely.
I heard in a course on stock investing that mutual fund managers also do this. If their fund fails in the market, they close it and reappear with a different name.
Even with this loophole, much thanks to Amazon which created the rating system benefiting the end users in spite of the damage it at times brings to the manufacturers. Amazon had to choose between manufacturers good vs. end-users good when creating this system, and they boldly chose the latter.
My point is that it's not just the relatively small app developers, even the big names are playing this game routinely.
I heard in a course on stock investing that mutual fund managers also do this. If their fund fails in the market, they close it and reappear with a different name.
Even with this loophole, much thanks to Amazon which created the rating system benefiting the end users in spite of the damage it at times brings to the manufacturers. Amazon had to choose between manufacturers good vs. end-users good when creating this system, and they boldly chose the latter.
There's already a refund mechanism; it's just buried, inconvenient, and kinda hard to figure out.
I bet a lot of the crapps would go away if more users knew they could get a refund when they got scammed.
I bet a lot of the crapps would go away if more users knew they could get a refund when they got scammed.
Where is it located? AFAIK, the only way to get a "refund" is to contact Apple and claim the app didn't work for technical reasons (didn't install properly, wouldn't start, etc.).
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There are a number of apps of this type. "Real FBI GPS Phone Tracker Pro" (under various names) is another repeat offender. The description goes on to say that the application uses GPS satellites to pinpoint the location of any phone number, "It works, guaranteed!" and then as a last sentence mentions that it's a gimmick. This app repeatedly comes up to top 100 paid under different names and publishers. As soon as one version disappears, another comes up with another author and app name, but very similar description.
Example (top 41 right now in the US App Store): http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/phone-tracker-spy-pro-locate/...
What's fascinating is that the reviews (if you browse through them) fall into two buckets: 5 star reviews proclaiming that it works, and highly negative reviews. This smells fishy. The 5 star reviews must be fabricated, if I know any better.
Word on the street is that these happen from operations that commandeer thousands of iTunes accounts to purchase and leave reviews, floating these apps to the top.
As a developer, I do find it kind of a bummer to spend many hours on my apps and then see these make it. Of course, I do know I should spend more time building apps and promoting them through creative means rather than being angry at the status quo.
However, I don't buy the argument that "people want these kinds of apps". I see the typical customer as a click-happy teenager who wants it to work, buys it, sees it doesn't work, and then forgets about the 99 cents wasted. In the meantime, the scammer gets wealthier.
I suppose this is no different from selling muscle supplements, acai berries, or get-rich-quick books, but still. Ugh.