Kosta Eleftheriou
@keleftheriou
Followers
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Give me a challenge, and I’ll meet it with joy ✌️
San Francisco
Joined August 2011
How about voice computer?
we need a name for this new computer interface of telling computers what you want in natural language and them doing it. any ideas?.
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The review: “This app forced me to give it a good rating before I could use it.”. You: “Pfff, no one’s FORCING you!”. The app: 🤯
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💰 How to make $13,000,000 on the App Store:. (thread).
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The App Store has a big problem👇. You: an honest developer, working hard to improve your IAP conversions. Your competitor: a $2M/year scam running rampant. 1/🧵.
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This @AppStore app pretends to be a silly platformer game for children 4+, but if I set my VPN to Turkey and relaunch it becomes an online casino that doesn’t even use Apple’s IAP. 🤯
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For those who don’t know, I’ve already filed a lawsuit against Apple:
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🚨Apple ignored this person. Now they’re publishing multiple proofs-of-concepts:. “I've reported four 0-day vulnerabilities this year [. ], three of them are still present in [iOS 15.0] and one was fixed in 14.7, but Apple decided to cover it up”🤯.
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And since Apple really loves California as much as I do:
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What Apple doesn’t want you to know about the App Store👇. “The apps you love, from a place you can trust” they tell you. But the reality is far from it. A 4.5-star app? Might as well be a multi-million dollar scam. How, you ask?. 1/🧵.
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You think the @AppStore is “a place you can trust”?. 🚨Think again!🚨. How to spot a $5M/year scam, in 5 minutes flat:👇.
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“No ads. We build products that we want for ourselves, too, and we just don't want ads.”
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If you think you can trust App Store ratings, you haven’t been paying enough attention. This is the iOS *system* rating prompt, not a custom look-alike one. The worst part? This trick is EXTREMELY easy for any developer to do, and not limited to this app. 🚨🚨🚨.
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For the longest time, I've been afraid to speak up about my story with App Review, fearing I'd put my popular app at risk. I've now decided that being transparent and sharing my experience to help others is worth it, so here it goes:👇.
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Apple: “An Apple Watch first — a new QWERTY keyboard lets you tap or slide from letter to letter” . FlickType:
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Why doesn’t Apple show this warning for apps like Amazon, Uber, or AirBnB?
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This developer has more than 15M downloads and $MILLIONS in revenue. As usual, Apple ignores customer complaints while also taking their 15-30% cut:. 🤑🤮
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So please Apple, do something. I'm pretty close to giving up here. If you've been affected by something like this, or would just like to help me spread the word, please consider retweeting for visibility. Thank you.
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“No ads. We build products that we want for ourselves, too, and we just don't want ads.”
With Apple’s recent changes to ads on the App Store, your product pages may now show ads for gambling apps. One of my product pages just did that 😞
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Senator @ossoff with some excellent questioning on the new App Store scam findings:. “Apple is making a cut on those abusive billing practices, are you not?”. “Does Apple refund all of Apple’s revenues derived from those scam billing practices?”. Apple: maybe, I think? 😅🤷♂️
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Apple also says they conduct a “robust” review process - yet this fraud takes place immediately upon launching the app. Even an automated check would have caught this!. But with no competing app stores on iOS, Apple doesn’t care enough to improve their ways… 🤷.
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“Apple conducts a robust app review before apps are published.”
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Up to now, I've been in the "Apple *wants* to do the right thing" camp. My viewpoint is starting to change. How to spot a $5M/year scam on the @AppStore, in 5 minutes flat:👇.
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Apple's special "Enable Notifications" prompt vs the prompt given to 3rd-party developers:
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Apple finally enabled ratings & reviews for their own apps on iOS 15:😬
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Apple: Apps may only use public APIs. Telegram: “VJJoqvuTfuIptuWjfx” 😅
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Meanwhile, Apple claims:. “The apps you love. From a place you can trust.”. “Every day, moderators review worldwide App Store chars for quality and accuracy.”
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If you’re worried about Apple taking action, worry not - they're also making millions off your app, and they’re happy to keep featuring it on the App Store, time and again:
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Apple citing “low user adoption” of PWAs as a reason for the lack of support.
Apple appears to be breaking iPhone web apps in the EU
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Apple: “We work hard to make the App Store a trustworthy ecosystem” and “We take feedback regarding fraudulent activity seriously”. Yet 8 months later, this is *still* possible on iOS 15.2. No words.
The review: “This app forced me to give it a good rating before I could use it.”. You: “Pfff, no one’s FORCING you!”. The app: 🤯
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“I have a side business that specializes in fake reviews, so I know fake reviews when I see them”
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The lesson?. Stay vigilant, and don’t fall for their marketing. The App Store is NOT a place you can trust.
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Fake ratings, and fake reviews. These quickly push the scams to the top of search results, leaving honest & hard-working developers in the dust. An old problem that's not easy to solve, but one that's at the core of why App Store app discovery is so problematic.
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Apple just added more of their built-in apps on the App Store, which you can now rate & review: 👀.
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An illegal movie-streaming scam is currently the TOP (!) App Store app in several countries:
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The best way to complain is to build it yourself.
.@pschiller: “PLEASE develop a system to automatically find low rated apps and purge them!!”. me: “Say no more…” 👨🏻💻🤫
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How it started / how it’s going. Since I exposed this scam yesterday, its ratings have dropped dramatically. What happened? . (thread)
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First, they made an app that appeared to fulfill the promise of a watch keyboard - but was practically unusable. Then, they started heavily advertising on FB & Instagram, using my own promo video, of my own app, with my actual name on it:
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How did “Apple Podcasts” suddenly go from 1.8 to 4.6 stars? Is Apple manipulating their own app ratings now?
If you ever feel bad about your own app’s ratings, just look at Apple Podcasts: 🥶
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I’m guessing Apple somehow implemented a review request right after finishing a podcast, thus leading a LOT of people to believe they are rating the podcast itself rather than the app. Ratings manipulation at its finest, by the gatekeepers themselves. Well done, @Apple.
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60% of developers in this study agreed with the statement “I have completely abandoned an App idea because Apple may reject it. And 71% agreed that “Apple is limiting innovation in apps because of its app store restrictions.”.
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when you forget to pay for fake App Store reviews for two months for your 10$/week (500$/year) shitty music app
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💥 The judge has now OVERRULED Apple’s attempt to dismiss my lawsuit over App Store scams & anti-competitive practices – so the case will move forward to discovery. 1/ Here’s what happened:.
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Steve Jobs on iPhone apps: . “And side-load them into your iPhone as well.”
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Apple has turned the magic of software development from “How cool would this be?” to “How cool would Apple be with this?”. That’s an environment of software suppression, not innovation.
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I didn’t think this was possible:. This App Store app immediately asks you for money and then *disables* the “Quit” option so that you can never close it!. And it’s been like that on the App Store for years!.
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🚨“Any app installed from the App Store may access the following data without any prompt from the user:”
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Steve Jobs personally approved the text users would see when they sideload an app, all the way back in May 2008:
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3. Buy lots of fake reviews on a daily basis (notice the pattern of all these non-sensical reviewer “names”):
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4. Profit!. Your app becomes the #135 highest-grossing app on the App Store, bringing in over $13 million since 2018:
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WARNING: Another top-grossing VPN scam is on the @AppStore. Stay clear! 🚨. How to spot this $5M/year scam in 5 minutes flat: 👇.
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Then their glowing 5-star reviews start rolling in:. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️."Very happy with it has control alt delete what's your two of my favorite Keys even though they don't work" says user Munim Flynn, delighted to be able to invoke the Windows task manager on their Apple Watch. Huh?.
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According to Apple, everyone in the EU will be dead from malware tomorrow.
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Apple: “Sideloading would destroy the security of the iPhone”. Also Apple:
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But wait, you say. People will see it doesn't work well & not give any money - surely! Well, this is the first screen you get upon launching the app: zero explanation, no close button, no price. Tap to "unlock", and you're now 1 step away from confirming a $416/year subscription.
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⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️."Great easy to read, very customisable with a full 5-row keyboard in landscape. The arrow keys are really helpful in terminal emulators" writes Ceclia Bock, who often turns her watch into landscape mode to do some terminal emulator work.
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Meanwhile, some of Apple's own apps haven't been updated for much longer than that. Rules for thee, but not for me!
I feel sick. Apple just sent me an email saying they're removing my free game Motivoto because its more than 2 years old. It's part of their App improvement system. This is not cool. Console games from 2000 are still available for sale. This is an unfair barrier to indie devs.
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And so, because scammers are willing to break the App Store rules and sink to unethical behavior I would never consider, it's impossible for me to compete with them😔.
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Over the years, I've worked incredibly hard to create what I think is the best Apple Watch keyboard app in the world. When I started, I had two goals:. 1. Make it possible to type on a watch at a reasonable speed.2. Stay ahead of any competition that might pop up.
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Apple: "The @AppStore is a place you can trust.". Also Apple: "Our lawyers told us to remove the 'Report a Problem' button to avoid paper trails & liability.". Remember this?
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🚨Can confirm the exploit also works on iOS 15.0 - it's able to silently pull a *trove* of personal information without _any_ kind of user prompt.
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By accumulating 10,000s of fake reviews over the years, you successfully drown out the real ones:
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These are just one of the many scammers I have to somehow deal with, and one out of the *many* scammers plaguing the App Store, stealing unsuspecting people's money every day - only because people have been led to believe they can trust app ratings and reviews.
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There are hundreds of these. And then, there's hundreds of *real* ones too: .⭐️."SCAM. What shady business. Downloaded this app on concept. It doesn’t even work. There is no free version AT ALL. You are tricked into downloading and then asked to pay $7.99 per FREAKING WEEK. Wow.".
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Apple’s monopoly on iOS app distribution must be stopped.
Apple destroyed my 7-figure business, unjustly, and threatened to report me to the feds. To clear my name, I had to reach deeper into Silicon Valley than ever before. Here's the story, AKA how I learned about platform risk.
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Coming soon. 👀
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Apple: “Building a version of iOS that bypasses security in this way would undeniably create a backdoor. And while the government may argue that its use would be limited to this case, there is no way to guarantee such control.”.
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Steve Jobs, on what he thought may be the single most important thing to learn in life:. “Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”
And finally, creators have rights. The right to build apps, share them with users directly, and do business directly, without being herded through a single centrally planned, anti-competitive store.
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“Just develop for Android instead”. I want to make apps for people, not platforms.
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Follow me for more scams & updates to my scam-detection app (coming soon):
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The richest company in the world can create an app that lets you safely browse the entire internet on your phone (Safari), but when it comes to native apps they MUST ABSOLUTELY go through the artisanally-curated, scam-infested App Store with a 30% commission. Makes total sense!.
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Instead of gaslighting, Apple could let us sideload *notarized* apps:. ✅Automated scan for malware.✅Remote kill switch, just in case. They could give users a choice, much like they're doing with the new App Tracking Transparency prompt. Their only problem?💰💸.
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1. Make a basic app people might be searching for, eg “Volume Booster”:
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EU to Apple: . “We noticed an issue with your submission”
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Tell me App Review is broken without telling me App Review is broken:
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Just a few months ago, I was *way* ahead of my competition. By the time they figured out just how hard autocorrect algorithms were, I was already rolling out the *swipe* version of my keyboard, quickly approaching iPhone typing speeds. So how did they beat me?🤔.
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Apple will never change their ways until they're publicly shamed. Sad to see it has come to this.
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But wait, you say. People will eventually see through all this, rate the app badly since it costs an obscene amount of money and doesn't even work well, so the scam will soon be dead in its tracks. That's why apps have ratings, surely! Right?.
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As part of their ongoing legal battle with Epic, Apple recently told the court: “Apple conducts a robust app review before apps are published.”. They’ve been telling lawmakers like @amyklobuchar the same thing again and again. Only now, the truth is coming out. And it’s ugly.
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2. Charge an absurd $10/week (~$520/year) auto-renewing subscription that’s easy to sign up for, but much harder to cancel:
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“The App Store takes parts of our job that we're already extremely good at — like customer support, quick updates, easy refunds — and makes them all more stressful and difficult, in exchange for giving Apple 30% of our revenue.” 🎯.
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The iOS App Store is not successful because it is good. It's successful because it is the only one.
Apple’s Mac App Store Adds Just 15 Apps Per Month vs 15 Per Minute For The iOS App Store via @forbes
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But since the scammers are not using Apple’s IAP, and an online casino could just be a website, why are they even going through the App Store?. To take advantage of people’s misplaced trust due to Apple’s “Security! Privacy!” marketing. In fact, this *is* just a web view!
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