App Store

Yet another developer has tapped into Apple’s new pressure sensitive 3D Touch display technology on the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus to create a real digital scale app, but this time Apple has given word that it won’t allow the apps on the App Store.
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Although carriers have created workarounds in the past, Apple has been slow to support carrier billing for iTunes and App Store purchases so far. That appears to be changing, in Germany at least, as TechCrunch reports Telefonica-owned carrier O2 is officially supported as a payment option within iTunes. O2 customers are said to be able to provide a phone number rather than a credit card to allow billing to be handled through O2 rather than directly with a credit or debit card or other options.

iTunes and App Store payments are then handled through the carrier with the phone bill monthly rather than immediately. This allows subscription services like Apple Music and Netflix to also be handled through carrier billing.
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Apple has once again updated its App Store data chart with the latest statistics on iOS 9 adoption. iOS 9 came out of the gate with a ridiculously-high >50% adoption rate just a few days after it launched. This pace has definitely slowed following the initial rush of users upgrading, but achieving 61% penetration of iOS devices is still a strong result. This appears to be keeping up with Phil Schiller’s prediction that iOS 9 will be “downloaded by more users than any other software release in Apple’s history.” Remember, iOS 9 can be installed on any iPhone, iPad or iPod touch that runs iOS 8.

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A couple of hours ago, Apple sent out emails asking registered Apple developers to submit their tvOS apps for the Apple TV, using the GM seeds of tvOS and Xcode 7.1.

Although several thousand developer kits are out in the wild, the App Store app is yet to appear for these users. It may come online over-the-air and just ‘appear’ like Apple TV channels do, or there may be a small software update in the next few days to add the application.

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Current Apple TV customers are getting at least one more new wave of channel additions before the focus completely means to the new App Store-based Apple TV on Monday. New channels from CBS, NBC, and the fashion-focused M2M arrived on current Apple TV home screens today, bringing CBS’s subscription service, full episodes of NBC shows, and exclusive fashion videos to the streaming box.
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Code analytics platform SourceDNA has found hundreds of apps on the App Store that used private APIs to collect private user data, like email addresses and device identifiers, slipping under Apple’s radar in the approval process. The code got into these apps through the inclusion of a mischievous third-party advertising SDK, which secretly stored this data and sent it off to its own servers.

Apple has now verified the SourceDNA report and is removing all of the apps that included the advertising SDK from the store, as using private API calls is a breach of App Review Guidelines. Apple has also patched its approval processes to prevent any more apps that use this technique to make it onto the App Store.

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Canadian telecommunications company Bell has been fined by Canada’s Competition Bureau today for posting deceptive reviews online. Bell has agreed to pay $1.25 million in fines to the organization. The investigation originally began when Bell acknowledged that its employees were “overzealous” in their reviews for the MyBell Mobile app on the App Store.

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The latest data from App Annie shows that Android has pushed further ahead in the number of apps downloaded worldwide, but iOS has increased its lead in app revenue.

Downloads in India and Southeast Asia in particular saw Android opening up its download lead from 85% in Q2 to 90% in Q3 2015, but that boost in low-cost handsets did nothing for app revenues. iOS apps increased their revenue lead from 70% to 80% in the last quarter … 
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Apple this evening has removed a handful of apps from the App Store that install root certificates of their own. By installing their own root certificate, the app developers could theoretically gain access to encrypted traffic from users. Among some of the apps being removed are a select number of ad blockers. The ad blockers that have been removed are ones that block content both in Safari and in other apps.

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As long as there has been an App Store, Apple has practiced strong discretion over which apps it approves and which it doesn’t allow on the iPhone and iPad. This has sometimes meant controversy for Apple, as its judgement is called into question when apps that were once approved are sometimes pulled for questionable reasons. Metadata+, an app that sends iPhone users alerts when a US drone strike leads to death, is the latest casualty, The Guardian reports…
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Google today announced that it’s bringing its Google Keep note taking app to iPhone and iPad for the first time after originally releasing only for web and Android users a couple years back.
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App analytics company SourceDNA – whose clients include Google, Amazon and Dropbox – claims that the compromised versions of many apps remain live in the Chinese App Store. This includes CamCard, which is a very popular app ranked #94.

The apps were infected with malware by a fake version of Xcode dubbed XcodeGhost which legitimate developers were fooled into downloading, believing it to be a copy of the genuine Apple app. A partial list of infected apps has been posted by security company Palo Alto Networks … 
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Update 1: The list of apps has now been updated with apps identified by Dutch security company Fox-IT. The company is reporting seeing malware traffic from the apps in Europe.

Update 2: Rovio has advised that only the version of Angry Birds 2 in the Chinese App Store was affected.

I wish to clarify that Rovio can confirm that only the Chinese build of Angry Birds 2 — available only on the App Store in Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau — is vulnerable to the security issue. All other builds of Angry Birds 2 available in other countries are completely safe and secure. An update of Angry Birds 2 for customers in Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau that fixes the issue is coming very shortly.

After yesterday’s revelation that hundreds of iOS apps on the App Store had been infected by malware, security company Palo Alto Networks has posted a list of some of the affected apps – which include Angry Birds 2.

The apps were infected by a fake copy of Xcode dubbed XcodeGhost, unwittingly downloaded by Chinese developers in place of the real thing. It’s believed they downloaded the fake from local servers because it took too long to download the original from Apple’s own servers. It’s not yet known why Apple’s own checks did not detect the malware when apps were submitted to the App Store.

It’s been suggested that over 300 apps are infected, with 31 of them so far identified (list below) … 
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Apple has admitted that it is App Store integrity was compromised as apps were secretly infected by fake Xcode tools before submission to the App Store. The company has now officially acknowledged the problem and is now removing apps affected by this ‘hack’ from the App Store.

Developers were inadvertently submitting malware by using counterfeit versions of Xcode, Apple’s development software, to submit apps. The fake Xcode, dubbed XcodeGhost, would inject malicious code into otherwise-legitimate apps during the submission process.

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Apple’s support for building Safari ad blockers in iOS 9 was sure to be controversial as they negatively and directly impact writers/publications like us here at 9to5Mac and others that rely on advertising for revenue. And while a few ad blockers climbed the App Store’s top paid chart this week, the highest ranked Safari content blocker has been pulled after being sold for just 48 hours. Developer Marco Arment announced today that he decided to pull his ad blocker app Peace from sale, citing that it “just doesn’t feel good” to [profit from] the negative impact to “many who don’t deserve the hit.”
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