Apple App Store Promotes ‘Rip-Off Apps’: Developers Are Furious

Apple’s App Store promotes various apps with high subscription fees. Developers are furious.

You will find many apps in the App Store. Some of them are useful, but of course there is sometimes quite a bit of junk in between. This is not only due to the content of those programs, but sometimes also the high costs. iOS developer Beau Nouvelle shares his annoyances via Twitter about it.

A slimy amount

Some of these apps in the App Store have plans that cost more than $10 a week. One is ‘Jelly: Slime Simulator, ASMR’. This one has a membership of 13 dollars per week, which means that you have lost 676 dollars in a year. Incidentally, the app is not available in the Netherlands, but that does not mean that this is the only program that charges such amounts for such nonsense.

Apple promoting these slime apps again.

A few of them have $10+ weekly subscriptions.

One of them doesn’t even do anything.https://t.co/d0dKLCkiVF

– Beautiful News (@BeauNouvelle) August 4, 2021

According to Nouvelle, that is against the terms and conditions of the App Store. It states: “If we don’t understand how your app works or if your in-app purchases aren’t immediately apparent, it will delay your review and may lead to a rejection. And while you set the price, we don’t distribute apps and in-app purchases that are clearly a scam. We reject expensive apps that try to cheat users with irrationally high prices.”

App Store Annoyance

Of course it causes annoyance to other developers. Not only because the apps have passed the approval of Apple, but that they are also featured in the app store. The big question is how exactly that clarification takes place. If this is done manually, that is of course special.

Of course there is also some personal responsibility, because it is always important to keep an eye on how much an app costs. It is of course different if this purchase is aimed at children.

MacRumors