Let’s face it – not all of us want every purchase we complete via the iTunes or App stores available to anyone who uses our iPhone, iPad, or Macbook. Some things just need to remain, well, private.
Luckily, it’s pretty easy to hide the evidence from unauthorized users via a quick trip to the iTunes app on your Mac or PC.
The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are shattering all kinds of sales records, and that knock-on effect is starting to be felt elsewhere: The overwhelming interest in Apple’s next-generation handsets pushed iTunes App Store downloads to new heights last month.
How much of an increase are we talking about? In October, the top 200 free iOS apps hit a collective 7.8 million app downloads per day, according to new research from Fiksu, a Boston-based marketing firm.
When it comes to the App Store, there’s rarely such a thing as a “free” app. If you’re not paying for it upfront you’ll probably get hit up with exorbitant in-app purchase offers later. So in a move to change the way apps are advertised on iOS, Apple had decided to remove the “Free” download button entirely.
Apple has announced that its China App Store, the second biggest in the world, is now accepting UnionPay as a payment option for customers.
As the most popular payment card in China — with over 4.5 billion cards issued to date — the move will make it simpler and more convenient for Apple users in China to purchase apps, since customers can now easily link their Apple ID with a UnionPay debit or credit card.
“The ability to buy apps and make purchases using UnionPay cards has been one of the most requested features from our customers in China,” Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, is quoted as saying in Apple’s statement. “China is already our second largest market for app downloads, and now we’re providing users with an incredibly convenient way to purchase their favorite apps with just one-tap.”
Apple is being sued by China’s second biggest insurance company over claims that it allowed a “counterfeit app” to be sold in the iTunes App Store.
The app in question misleads users into thinking it is the official app of Lufax, the leading provider of wealth and financial assets management in China, and a subsidiary of the Ping insurance group.
Ping is arguing that users in China might download the counterfeit Lufax app instead of the legitimate one, and that the ensuing risk of fraud and potential loss for Lufax’s customers is significant.
(Updated with Apple statement below.)
A new class of malware targeted at OS X and iOS is spreading like wildfire in China, according to new research by Palo Alto Networks. Dubbed WireLurker, the trojan hides itself in apps distributed through a third-party Chinese app store for OS X and side-loads itself onto iOS devices via USB.
What sets WireLurker apart from other malware is that it is capable of infecting non-jailbroken iOS devices, and it heralds “a new era in malware attacking Apple’s desktop and mobile platforms.”
When you live in Apple’s world as a third-party developer, you are required to play by Apple’s rules. And sometimes those rules are subject to sudden change.
James Thomson, the developer behind the scientific calculator app PCalc, was notified today by Apple that his iOS 8 widget must be removed. The reason? A new stipulation that iOS widgets cannot perform calculations.
The reasoning behind Apple’s decision may never be known by Thomson or anyone outside the company, and that’s just the point. The App Store is Apple’s kingdom to rule, for better or worse.
Well, here’s one for the record books. Apple just rejected a developer’s app for violating its policies against pornographic content.
Nothing weird about that, except for the way that Apple went about it: by sending that developer pictures of a dude masturbating. What?
iOS 8’s new Family Sharing feature makes it easier than ever for your entire family to share purchases on iTunes, iBooks and the App Store.
Family Sharing is about more than just sneaking copies of apps off your siblings’ accounts, though: It can bring harmony to your entire digital life by sharing photos, creating a family calendar and even keeping track of each others’ locations.
With minimal effort, you can sync up to six accounts. Here’s how to maximize Family Sharing’s potential.
One of the hottest iPhone games in Russia right now isn’t Angry Birds or Candy Crush, but an app that lets you collect bottles as a homeless person.
Homeless: Life Simulator, which just launched in the United States, recently hit the No. 1 spot in the Russian App Store’s role-playing games category.
“Begin your life as an unknown homeless to become a president of your country!” says the marketing copy on the App Store.
The app itself looks really basic — screen-spanning buttons, a couple of casino mini-games and that’s about it. Apparently, being homeless is fun in Russia, because you can gamble your way to success!
The weirdest thing? It’s not the only “homeless” simulator going.
Not even Apple’s new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus support super-sharp 4K video recording out of the box, but they do have the necessary hardware to support it. Vizzywig 4K, a new iOS app that was just approved by Apple, brings this functionality to the iPhone 5s — but it costs a whopping $999.99.
iOS 8’s release is eminent with Apple announcing today that its new software will be released to the public on September 17th.
To get the App Store ready, Apple is officially accepting iOS 8 versions of apps from third-party developers.
Apple is constantly looking to improve the App Store experience, and ahead of the long-awaited release of the iPhone 6 and public version of iOS 8, it is doubling its efforts.
With these two landmark events coming up rapidly, the company has updated its App Store review guidelines to add all-new sections dealing with features such as HealthKit, HomeKit and TestFlight, extensions and more.
It’s been a hard few days for iCloud. Now the App Store is suffering a serious outage that’s keeping apps from downloading and updating.
One of the great mysteries of the App Store is why certain apps get rejected and why others don’t. Apple has let a surprising number of ripoffs and clones through the store’s iron gates, yet some developers face rejection for seemingly innocent apps.
“Before you develop your app, it’s important to become familiar with the technical, content, and design criteria that we use to review all apps,” explains Apple on a new webpage called “Common App Rejections.”
While it certainly has its fair share of clones and discoverability issues, Apple’s mega profitable App Store is still the toast of the App Store world.
With that in mind, Microsoft is using it as its (unofficial) model for rethinking its own Windows app store which, to put it bluntly, is downright broken.
Apple has added 16 new countries and regions to the App Store’s Volume Purchasing Program today that allows businesses and schools to purchase mass quantities of a single app in just one purchase, and distribute it among multiple students or employees.
The list of new countries joining the program include Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hong Kong, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, and the UAE.
The addition of the new countries was announced by the App Store team via the following email:
Google has launched an official Photo Sphere app for iPhone that allows users to snap 360° panoramas and then publish them on Google Maps. It’s perfect for capturing all of the amazing places you visit, and it lets your friends share your experiences in a way that regular photos just can’t.
Apple has a long history of keeping BitTorrent apps out of the App Store. If you search for “BitTorrent” in the App Store now, only two results show up. Neither of them allow you to actually download torrents.
That’s why it was surprising when an app called Blue Downloader showed up in the store a couple of days ago. Its secret sauce is that it allows users to find and download torrents through sources chosen by its developer, Tyler Harrison, making it hard to use for illegal downloads like grabbing Expendables 3 off The Pirate Bay.
Apple approved Blue Downloader, but after Harrison made a change that allowed searching Google for torrents, the app was suddenly pulled. In an interview with Cult of Mac, Harrison explains how Apple’s response reflects its “innate fear of BitTorent” and his plans to get his app back in the store.
Since it first opened up in Julu of 2008, the App Store has paid developers over $13 billion at last count, and the marketplace hosts are over 1 million third-party programs. That makes the App Store a success by almost any measure… except discoverability.
Even today, the App Store can be extremely hard to navigate. Dominated by clones of popular apps and freemium crapware, good apps often get buried at the bottom of the App Store thanks to the App Store’s notoriously bad search engine and almost non-existent curation.
But former Apple executive Jean-Louis Gassée has a suggestion. Make the App Store more like Reddit. Let anonymous humans curate it.
Everyone wants to make a mint in the App Store. But while some developers slave away in coding dens on original ideas, others see a get-rich-quick shortcut through copying.
The result is an App Store littered with clones, frustrated devs, and Apple stuck playing a never-ending game of whack-a-mole to police the rip-off apps.
Recently the developers of micro-messaging service Yo — this year’s most unlikely App Store success story — were shocked to discover that another eerily-similar app called Yolo was hoovering up its potential downloads.
“I noticed a clone that was an exact replica, including the exact same UI, same App Store screenshots, and same App Store description copied word-for-word,” Yo creator Or Arbel tells Cult of Mac.
Since Apple announced its Q3 2014 earnings last month everyone seems focused on less-than-stellar iPad sales, but along with the impending launch of the iPhone 6, Apple’s got a lot to celebrate as the company told CNBC that the App Store had record-setting revenue numbers in July.
Apple says it saw a record number of customers making transaction on the App Store in July, prompting Tim Cook to launch a celebratory tweet to developers:
Watch today’s Cult of Mac news roundup for details on how one popular group of protesters are picketing Steve Jobs and Apple itself. Plus, get info on a new Snapchat clone from Instagram, news on unlocking your iPhone and even how one KickStarter is turning MacBooks into huge touch-enabled tablets.
Of course, don’t forget to subscribe to Cult of Mac TV on YouTube and catch all our latest videos.
Where there’s a popular idea, you can be sure the clones will follow. Earlier this year the popular app in question was Flappy Bird, and here in July it’s simplified message app Yo, which has to date received $1.5m in funding.
A few weeks back we wrote about Yo spoof Hodor, but it seems that there’s another more pressing clone out there, called Yolo, which Yo founder Or Arbel describes as “a complete fake copy of our Yo app.”
In response to Yolo, Arbel has filed a complaint with Apple, asking it to remove Yolo from the App Store since it allegedly infringes on Arbel’s copyright and trademark.
Six months after being unceremoniously booted out of the App Store, popular bitcoin wallet app Blockchain is back where it belongs, with Apple having let it back in after seemingly changing its mind about the digital currency.
Blockchain was removed from the App Store back in February this year, having briefly been excised and then re-accepted before that. It followed in the footsteps of fellow wallets BitPak and Coinbase, which were also removed by Apple.