Thread by @keleftheriou

What Apple doesn’t want you to know about the App Store👇

“The apps you love, from a place you can trust” they tell you. But the reality is far from it.

A 4.5-star app? Might as well be a multi-million dollar scam.

How, you ask?

1/🧵

The average star rating of an app can be *trivially* manipulated by any developer.

Really. Just take a look at this eye-opener of a Quora page:

quora.com/What-are-the-b…

But Kosta, I hear you say. Apple would just take down any app that did that!

Well, no. That might be true in some cases, but scams can go undetected for *years*:

https://twitter.com/keleftheriou/status/1357938977748078594?s=20

But Kosta, I hear you say. Some scams might be really hard to detect. Apple can’t be expected to find all of them!

Well, let me show you just how easy it is to find one of them:

Let’s say we’re looking for a Roku remote control app.

We search the App Store, and as we’re typing we see this:

Hmm… “Roki” is a suspiciously similar spelling to “Roku”.

Let’s take a closer look:

At 4.5 stars & over 15,000 ratings - and a download price of free - this is definitely one to try. Right?

We open the app, and are almost immediately presented with an in-app purchase screen.

Given the great ratings, we decide to try the free trial - what is there to lose?

What follows is an incredibly buggy, ad-infested, poorly designed money-grabbing experience.

But wait. Aren’t people rating it badly? Are they not leaving bad reviews?

What is going on here?

Let’s pull up @AppFigures and take a bird’s eye view of *just* the reviews.

Remember, a review is a rating that also had some accompanying text with it:

Out of 15,000 ratings, only 338 reviews! And their average?

1.7 stars

ONE. POINT. SEVEN.

Reading the reviews, we see people desperately trying to warn others, as well as figure out how to cancel the recurring charges.

Some even think the app is associated with Roku.

Here’s a few of them - bear with me:

⭐️
Can't find my way out of this nightmare
I accidentally hit the other option and when I tried to exit the app By hitting the circle button at the bottom of the phone it processed my payment. I haven't got the slightest clue how to cancel this.

⭐️
Help
how can I cancel my acc so it can stop taking money off my card i dont want it anymore pls help someone

⭐️
Crap compared to what else is available for free
This is probably the worst app I’ve ever downloaded. I’m guessing all the positive reviews are robots. Must be.

⭐️
Cancel
Requested cancellation twice. Still charging me.

⭐️
Not happy
Hate the app! I downloaded on an accident cause I was trying to get my Roku to work. I have sent several emails asking to close my account and refund me and they have not gotten back to me or refunded me. Worst app ever.

⭐️
Did I subscribe to something?
Yo why am I still getting charged? How do you cancel a subscription? This is a total scam!
Update - This developer is constantly on the defensive. This is not the only review like this. Got down this rabbit hole at your own risk.

⭐️
Total ripoff!
I would give zero if I could taking my money after I tried repeatedly to cancel!
Beware seems no way to cancel once they get u for trial.

⭐️
Rip off
I bought a week of the remote control at 4.99. Now they keep charging me and I can’t get it to stop. Beware.

⭐️
Horrible
This app was downloaded without my consent and no more than 5 minutes after I discovered this I sent an email to the company explaining this and asking for a refund and they declined.
$20 dollars for this stupid app which serves me no purpose. Not recommended at all.

⭐️
Won’t let me cancel membership
Kinda messed up

⭐️
Worthless I want to cancel
Worthless I want to cancel

⭐️
Scam
I accidentally downloaded this instead of the real Roku app. They’re literally just charging people money (and a lot of it) to do what the actual app does for free, and from the looks of the reviews it doesn’t even work well. don’t download this.

⭐️
Rip-off
Not sure why this is the first Roku remote to pop up. Download the FREE official one with way more reviews.

⭐️
Ridiculous
Every time you touch a button you are asked to upgrade. I am a long term customer who simply couldn’t find the remote. This app was completely frustrating and left a bad impression of Roku overall.

⭐️
9.99 a MONTH to use my phone as a remote?!?!?
I have to pay money to use the remote? F you Roku, I already bought the tv. I hope you all catch Covid and die

⭐️
Scam
This is a third party app developed to trick people in to downloading and paying for something that’s free if you have a Roku. They buy adds for “Roku Remote” but the app is “Roki Remote”.
Seems Apple will approve anything these days.

Because the scammers keep buying positive ratings, the app remains highly rated - giving people a false sense of trust. Most people won’t bother to go through the reviews of a 4.5-star free app.

So all these voices remain unheard, with new users perpetually falling for the scam.

But Apple can hear them. Apple can trivially and automatically detect this anomaly between ratings and reviews. If I can, they can too.

And they can do even better by also looking at the refund request rate, something I don’t have access to.

But they don’t, it seems.

This is not about the “Roki” name, the expensive subscription, or any other dark pattern.

This is about the fact that today, App Store ratings cannot be trusted.

With trustworthy ratings most other problems become self-correcting. Nobody would keep downloading a 1.7 star app.

This app has already stolen more than $2M from people since 2019, and is on track to steal more than double that this year alone.

And it’s only one of the many scams this same “developer” is currently operating.

All because they can keep buying their ratings.

As for the honest developers trying their best for a good rating?

Scammy apps make a mockery of them, and of Apple's promise of fair competition.

If you’re willing to sink to unethical behavior, you get rewarded.

And App Store quality keeps getting dragged down to new lows.

So please Apple, do something. Make the App Store a trusted place to discover apps.

And until you do, protect your customers by letting them know that ratings can’t be trusted.

It’s time to right this wrong and publicly acknowledge this.

Thanks for listening.

The scam: apps.apple.com/app/id14819381…

@leolaporte @Ihnatko @heatherkelly @reneritchie

^ thread @johnkoetsier

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