A new report examines the adoption rate of iOS 14.5 App Tracking Transparency and App Store privacy labels.
App Store
Democrats Prepare Set of 5 Antitrust Bills Targeting Tech Companies
Democrats in the House of Representatives are preparing five bills targeting tech companies in different ways.
App Store’s Billings & Sales Generated $643 Billion in 2020
Apple announced on Wednesday that the App Store’s billings and sales generated US$643 billion in 2020, in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic.
App That Forced Users to Leave Positive Review Removed From App Store
Apple has removed from the App Store an app that forced users to leave a good review before they could use it, iMore reported. It was, though, possible to leave bad reviews in other ways, such as on the web.
Kosta Eleftheriou highlighted the strange behavior of the app in a tweet. The video appears to show a review prompt that can’t be bypassed, and one that won’t accept anything lower than a three-star review before only letting users hit ‘submit’. The app does have plenty of bad reviews, but these are all about being forced to leave good ones. It is unclear how a developer would be able to bork the App Store review prompt so comprehensively like this, but Eleftheriou claims the developer has more than 15M downloads and “$MILLIONS” in revenue, of which Apple receives a commission.
Apple in China – TMO Daily Observations 2021-05-20
Bryan Chaffin and Andrew Orr join host Kelly Guimont to discuss Apple’s relationship with China, and how it’s not a good look for the company.
How Music and Sound Influence the Endel App
Endel is an app that is meant to help users focus, sleep, and relax. Apple published an interview with one of its co-founders, CEO Oleg Stavitsky, in which he described the importance of music and art to the company and its products.
The unexpected makeup of Endel’s founding team — which Stavitsky emphasizes is more of an artist collective than a traditional app development team — provided a certain synergy around the power of sound. The collective’s first foray into app development was BUBL, a suite of digital art apps for kids blending abstract design, sound, and a carefully crafted user interface, launched on the App Store in 2013. “They almost looked like Wassily Kandinsky’s paintings that sort of came to life,” he says. “I was always fascinated with the correlation of color, form, and sound,” Stavitsky says. “That has everything to do with Kandinsky, who is one of my favorite painters, and then at the same time, with the minimalist composers of the ’70s, like Brian Eno, Philip Glass, and Steve Reich. And so even for our BUBL apps, we built a lot of technology that would generate musical composition in real time, depending on what someone was doing in the app.”
U.S. and China Activists Hit Out at Apple App Store During Epic Games Trial
As Apple’s court clash with Epic Games continues, campaigners in the U.S and China have reiterated their complaints against the App Store.
Apple Stopped $1.5 Billion Transactions in 2020
In the midst of its legal battle with Epic Games concerning the App Store, Apple says it stopped over US$1.5 billion fraudulent transactions in 2020.
128 Million Apple Users Unknowingly Downloaded Malware in 2015
Emails published in the Epic v Apple trial on Friday revealed that 128 million users downloaded malware from the App Store in 2015.
Developers Have a New Area to Place App Store Ads
Apple announced on Tuesday that developers have a new area to place App Store ads for their apps.
Apple Rejects 78 Percent App Store Operating Margin Figure From Epic Expert Witness
Apple hit back at a figure put forward by an expert witness for Epic Games who said the App Store had operating margins of nearly 78 percent.
One Man Shows How The App Store Has a Scam Problem
As Apple faces scrutiny in the Senate, a man named Kosta Eleftheriou is challenging Apple in another way: By finding scam apps.
Digital Rights Group Calls on Congress to Abolish the App Store
The Senate Judiciary Committee is preparing to hear testimony from app developers regarding the App Store. In preparation, Fight For The Future has created AbolishTheAppStore.org.
By centralizing software distribution through the App Store, Apple is upholding the unjust laws of authoritarian regimes and restricting innovation in the mobile software industry. We believe that iOS should work like every other general purpose computing system, including Apple’s own MacOS. Developers should be free to create — and users should be free to install — software directly onto the devices that they own without asking for Apple’s permission.
Apple Lets Social Media Platform ‘Parler’ Back in App Store
In a letter sent to Congress on Monday, Apple says it will allow Parler into the App Store again after improvements were made.
Nobody Voted on the Arizona Bill to Regulate App Store
Critics are accusing Apple of backroom dealing over the fact that the Arizona HB2005 bill that would affected app stores was never voted upon.
Apple Blocks ProtonVPN Updates Over App Messaging
ProtonVPN announced in a blog post that Apple has blocked its app updates, saying this harms users in countries like Myanmar.
Apple’s New Page Shares Privacy Labels for its Apps
Apple recently created a new webpage that lists all of its apps from A to X and shares information on its privacy labels in accordance with iOS 14.
North Dakota Votes No on Third Party App Store Bill Backed by Epic Games
The North Dakotan Senate voted 36-11 against bill SB2333on Tuesday, backed by Epic Games and the Coalition for App Fairness.
Apple Apologizes For Mistakenly Removing Student’s Indigenous Language App from App Store
Student, Brendan Eshom, a member of the Gitga’at community of the Ts’msyen First Nation, launched an app that shared his community’s culture and promoted a word each day in its language – Sm’algyax. However, it was removed and the young developer tried to contact Apple to found out. He got no answers, but the company has confirmed to Global News that it was taken down in error, has been reinstated, and apologized.
He says he reached out to Apple multiple times for an explanation, but couldn’t get answers. “It was definitely more discouraging to not even hear why they took it down in the first place,” he said. Eshom contacted Consumer Matters for help. Consumer Matters contacted Apple asking why the app had been removed and why Eshom’s status on Apple had been terminated. In an email, Apple stated: “Maintaining the integrity of the App Store is a responsibility we take seriously to ensure the safety of our customers, and give every developer a platform to share their brightest ideas with the world. Unfortunately, this developer’s app, which is a great example of how technology can be used to bridge cultural understanding, was mistakenly removed from the App Store
Apple Shares ‘MySwimPro’ in Developer Spotlight
Apple has highlighted Fares Ksebati and his app MySwimPro in its Developer Spotlight. It provides aquatic workout videos for athletes.
What do you know now that you wish you’d known when you started? That it’s really important to be consistent, that it takes time to develop, and that if you can just be a little bit better every single day, the compounding impact is absolutely insane. We’ve been at this for five years, which is more than 1,800 days, and we’re trying to be at least 1 percent better each day.
Google Play Store to Allow Licensed Gambling Apps Providing Android a Competitive Advantage
Google announced it will allow Android gambling apps on its Google Play store, and Bryan Chaffin says it might be a differentiating factor from Apple’s iOS and iPadOS platforms.
Security Friday: App Transparency and Dots – TMO Daily Observations 2021-01-29
Andrew Orr and Jeff Butts join host Kelly Guimont to discuss Security Friday news including iOS updates and apps, and that dot on your iPhone.
App Tracking Transparency Is Already Here
While developers aren’t yet required to follow the new privacy feature, App Tracking Transparency is already here. As Jeff Butts has found, there are some app developers who are even using it before they have to.
Investigation Shows Some App Store Privacy Labels are Misleading
iOS 14 added App Store privacy labels as a way for developers to disclose the data their apps collect. But some of these labels may be inaccurate.