At WWDC Apple talked about the enormous sums which annually pays application developers. But, if you delve into the subject, it is possible to detect a clear trend towards the Scam in the App Store. Some applications that advertise fake services, generate income to tens of thousands of dollars per month.
In the article on Medium, “How to earn $80,000 a month in App Store” johnny Lin told the application that fraudulently entices users large amounts of money.
“I looked at the list in the category “Productivity” and saw apps from famous companies such as Dropbox, Evernote, and Microsoft. This was to be expected. But what is below? The tenth app in the list (as at 7 June 2017) called “Mobile protection :Clean & Security VPN”.
Given the strange name (case sensitive, misplaced colon, and the grammatical error), I was sure that this is a bug in the ranking algorithm. So I switched to Sensor Tower to view the income application and it was noted… $80 000 per month. It couldn’t be true. I was curious”.
Lin downloaded and installed the app, but soon it demanded to begin a trial period of antivirus, which iOS does not need in principle. After agreement with the beginning of the trial period window appears with authentication with Touch ID, where it is said that after 7 days of use, you must pay $99,99.
Johnny was one step away from purchasing a useless service for $400 per month.
“Suddenly it became clear to me how this app is possible to earn $80 000 per month. At a price of $400 per month, the fraudster will need to cheat just 200 users to get $80,000 a month or $960 000 per year. Of this amount, Apple takes 30% or $280 000. And that’s just one app”.
Lin explained how unscrupulous developers cashing in on users through advertising in the App Store. The fact that Apple has no control over the ads and such applications it is virtually impossible to distinguish from the real top.
Johnny went deep into the search and found several programs with the same scams. Users need to be careful, as fraudulent applications are increasingly struggling in the first place in the top of the App Store.
It is unclear how such software gets into the app store, because Apple has a strict approval process. Possible changes in iOS 11 will prevent the emergence of such applications in the list of top.
Users can always contact Apple if you have problems with the downloaded applications or report fraud through iTunes Connect.
