Kimi, a pirated app that allowed users to watch movies and TV shows on iPhones, briefly beat out streaming heavyweights like Netflix and Disney+ in the App Store rankings. Apple subsequently removed it for violating the rules. It brings details Gizmodo magazine.
According to the data of the analytics platform Appfigures, the Kimi application was occupied on Monday, February 12 4th place in the list of free entertainment apps and overall ranked 12th in the App Store’s best apps list. In both categories, it thus got ahead of the most important players in this segment, such as HBO Max, Hulu, Netflix, Peacock and Disney+.
However, the fame of the Kimi app was short-lived. On Tuesday, HBO Max got ahead of her in the ranking of entertainment apps, and Apple removed Kimi from the App Store the same day. Several reasons contributed to this move. The first was, of course, streaming pirated content.
Test your eyesight on pirated movies
Another problem was the fact that developers in an effort to pass Apple’s strict control filters they disguised the app as a vision testing platform. She was described as “an interesting app that tests your eyesight” and masquerading as a game by presenting users with two images and asking them to spot the differences.
But in reality, the Kimi app offered something completely different. When users opened it, a sleek Netflix-like interface appeared, welcoming them with tons of popular movies and TV shows. They could then watch them – although not always in the best quality. For example, an Oscar-nominated film Poor people (Poor Things) was said to be grainy and pixelated.
In its quasi-review published on Tuesday, February 13, the magazine The Verge reported, that Kimi isn’t actually a bad app, noting that its search features come with easy-to-use filters. There were even available in it charts of the most viewed content.
Apple deleted the Kimi app
Although the Kimi app was released on the App Store last September, it remained out of the spotlight until early February. Analytics platform Appfigures reports that the spike in downloads only happened over the past weekend, with 65,000 downloads on Sunday and Monday.
On Tuesday, Apple uncompromisingly removed the Kimi application from the App Store. He reasoned that the developers’ misrepresentation was a clear violation of the App Store’s app rating guidelines, and that he pulled it as soon as he found out. Apple spokeswoman Archelle Thelemaque declined to answer a question about how such an application could have gotten past the review processes.
The fact that the Kimi app made it to the App Store and stayed there for so long is a bad sign for Apple, which has long prided itself on the security of its app store and a team of 500 experts who review more than 100,000 apps a week. If an app like Kimi, which didn’t even try too hard to hide its true intentions, could get there, it’s another reminder that statements like this should be taken with a grain of salt.
2024-02-16 12:39:13
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