App Store

Researchers at Avast discovered a total of 204 fleeceware apps with over a billion downloads and over $400 million in revenue on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. This comes as Apple faces increased scrutiny over scam apps in the App Store.

The Epic Games versus Apple dispute is not the David versus Goliath battle the game developer wants people to believe, said the Cupertino company: It is instead a battle of two Goliaths.

Apple asked an Australian court to rule against a trial in the country, arguing that Epic agreed to terms that clearly state that any legal challenges need to be made in California …

Apple’s executive responsible for the App Store developer relations has retired after two decades at the company, according to a new report by Bloomberg. The role is being handed over to a veteran Apple marketing executive.

Apple has defended the App Store app review process following formal complaints lodged by Epic Games and other developers to the Australian antitrust watchdog.

In addition to complaining about Apple’s 30% cut, Epic had told the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) that the app review process could delay the launch and update of apps; apps could be rejected by Apple without proper cause; and that it was hard to engage with the company when this happened …

Last month, we saw FlickType developer Kosta Eleftheriou take to Twitter to call out App Store scams with some reportedly lasting years and making millions of dollars. He later shared a detailed thread on how some developers abuse and game the App Store with fake ratings and reviews. Now Eleftheriou has filed a lawsuit with the claim that “Apple systematically flexes its monopoly muscle against potential competition through the App Store,” has breached its contract with developers, and more.

The developer behind the Twitter client Aviary is launching a new app today. Vinyls is a minimalist app that displays a spinning vinyl when playing a song, and it’s built for Apple Music subscribers.

Google has copied Apple’s 15% commission level for smaller developers in the App Store, offering almost exactly the same deal in the Play Store.

However, the way Google has done it is actually fairer, and is how Apple should have implemented the program in the first place …

Apple announced the App Store Small Business Program last year, which allows small developers to pay a reduced commission for each sale made through the App Store. While it may seem like the company is giving up a significant amount of money, new estimates from analyst firm Sensor Tower show that Apple’s revenue is expected to decrease by only 5% with the program.

iPhone app privacy labels have been a real eye-opener in showing just how much of our personal data is accessed by certain apps. If you’ve ever wondered which apps collect and share the most data, cloud storage company pCloud did the legwork.

The company examined app privacy labels in the App Store, and compiled a ranking of apps by the percentage of personal data collected, as well as the amount of it passed to third parties…

ByteDance, TikTok’s owner; Tencent; and other tech giants in China are testing a tool to bypass Apple’s new privacy rules and continue to track iPhone users without their consent. The feature in question here is the App Tracking Transparency privacy protection capability.

Google is slowly updating its many iOS applications with App Store privacy labels, detailing the type of data it collects from users. The Google and Chrome applications were recently updated with these new labels, and DuckDuckGo is already using them to its advantage.

According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, Apple and Google have been hiring local lobbyists and immersing themselves in proposed legislation in Arizona, Maryland, and Virginia. In Apple’s case, the legislation often targets the App Store.

Apple announced last year the new App Store Small Business Program, which allows small developers to pay a reduced commission to Apple for sales made through the App Store. However, developer Sean Harding shared his story on Twitter about how he became ineligible for this program even though he’s an independent, small developer.

In January, following the insurrection at the US Capital, Apple kicked the social media network Parler off the App Store, citing its lack of moderation. After a recent review, Apple has apparently declined Parler’s request to come back to the App Store.

Security researcher and founder of PingSafe AI, Anand Prakash, discovered a flaw in the popular iPhone app “Automatic Call Recorder.” This bug allowed anyone to access call recordings from other users by knowing their phone number.

Twitter has announced a handful of new features recent: Spaces, Fleets, the acquisition of the newsletter product Revue, and the Super Follow function, which will let people pay creators on Twitter for special content.

In a new interview with the Verge, Kayvon Beykpour, Twitter head of consumer products, addressed the new Super Follow feature and sharing a 30% cut with Apple.

Apple’s failure to deliver on its App Store promise could well end up costing it dearly in its defense of antitrust investigations all around the world.

Regulators are trying to answer two questions. First, does Apple’s approach to the App Store harm developers? Second, does it harm consumers?

If the App Store lived up to the promises Apple makes, then the company would have a solid defense against the second charge. Unfortunately for the iPhone maker, that’s not really the case …

Apple’s bad day for antitrust concerns continues. European Union antitrust investigators are planning to announce the results of their investigation into Apple in the coming weeks, as reported by Reuters. This comes after the UK announced that it is opening its own investigation into the App Store earlier on Thursday.