Cloned virtual phone number apps breaking App Store rules to increase discovery

A new record from TechCrunch nowadays looks into how some app builders sport the App Store with the aid of submitting multiple variations of the equal (or very comparable) app. While it looks like these apps are breaking the App Store rules, builders of those apps defend the strategy as fair recreation.

TC’s investigative file calls out each developer the usage of this approach of filing more than one versions of the same app in addition to Apple for not implementing its policies.

Companies don’t even attempt to disguise the truth that [they] have submitted more than one versions of the identical app with distinct names and icons. But center capabilities continue to be identical. Apple hasn’t enforced its own tenet nicely and developers took advantage of that grey location.

One example is the developer TextMe, Inc. Who has 3 unique apps that serve more often than not the same purpose? Notably, they all even use identical screenshots within the App Store.

The wording is slightly one-of-a-kind for each app. TextMe Up lets you “call & text each person in the global from your cell, tablet, and pc”, whilst TextMe helps you to “get a brand new telephone variety and begin texting and making calls for free” and FreeTone is all about “[enjoying] free calls & texts to the phone numbers inside the US and Canada”.

But in case you have a look at the App Store screenshots, the organization doesn’t even trouble to change the screenshots or advertising replica.

However, TextMe believes they are abiding by means of the App Store guidelines and use the 3 apps as advertising and competitive strategies.

“Our apps have a different advertising target,” TextMe, Inc. Co-founder and co-CEO Patrice Giami instructed me in a telephone interview. “They share the equal code base, but we are able to activate or deactivate a few features to be able to differentiate the apps. We manage that relying on the aggressive environment and if we need to optimize distribution.”

The record appears into numerous other developers who use the same method as TextMe. At the cease of the day, Apple could resolve the trouble through defining regulations like those extra virtually and imposing them continuously.

While Apple is commonly pretty strict with regards to App Store recommendations, it hasn’t enforced a number of them. And this is unfair for app builders who play via the policies. They can’t compete as efficaciously with businesses that recognize that they could ignore a few rules.

This cutting-edge report comes after Apple has taken warmness for website hosting an arguable Saudi-based iOS app referred to as Absher. Last month Facebook, Google, and more had been caught abusing Apple’s Enterprise Certificate program.