NEWS: Mystery IPhone Book Apps Disappear From Store

A group of iPhone apps that had received top rankings on the iTunes Store have disappeared from the top 50 book applications following complaints from developers.

The developers said they noticed dozens of applications by the same author surge into the top rankings, although the applications frequently had few or no user reviews and appeared to be roughly coded.

The incident coincided with reports that iTunes Store users were charged for applications they say they did not purchase, suggesting that their accounts may have been compromised.

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COMMENT: Apple controls what you want, not what you don't want. ;)

Reply to
John Navas
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nice snip job. are you that threatened by apple that you must resort to blatant lying?

here's more, from the same article that *you* gave:

"It looks like the Books category has been hijacked by an app publisher named mycompany/Thuat Nguyen," Thomson wrote in an e-mail to Brie. "His apps now occupy 40 of the top 50 ranks in the Books category on the app store. These are apps that typically wouldn't rank in the Books category and most of them don't have any ratings or reviews."

more info here:

the apps were based on stolen content and purchased from hacked accounts to skew the ratings.

apple canceled his developer account and app rankings are back to normal.

of course you don't mention that google has *removed* apps from user's devices, something apple has never done. the hypocrisy is astounding.

Reply to
nospam

s

NavASS is nothing but a man-child who never grew up. The maturity level is that of an 11 year old brat.

Reply to
George Kerby

nospam wrote in news:050720100911295176% snipped-for-privacy@nospam.invalid:

Astounding ? ..... or did you mean expected ?

Reply to
DanS

According to multiple customer reports, Apple iTunes accounts have been hacked to purchase an e-book application.

A rogue Vietnamese developer called Thuat Nguyen reportedly hacked into iTunes accounts and gamed the Books category in the Apple App Store to artificially inflate the ratings and sales for his book apps. Both The Next Web and Engadget websites reported Sunday that Nguyen apps accounted for 42 of the top 50 books by revenue in the Books section of the iTunes App Store.

At the site MacRumors, one forum contributor complained of seeing multiple unexplained iTunes charges totalling more than $500. The suspicious rise in the Vietnamese books' rankings was noticed by two competing iPhone developers, Alex Brie and Patrick Thomson, who were alarmed by their apps slipping in rankings in favor of those from Nguyen.

Two users also indicated in the ratings for Nguyen's apps that their iTunes accounts have been hacked and purchases of those apps were made on their behalf. Up to $200 from these hacked accounts were reportedly used to buy the developer's apps.

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COMMENT: Change your password, noW! And make it a secure password.

Reply to
John Navas

Apple is using the immense amount of data that it has collected from its

150 million iTunes accounts to help its iAd advertisers target their pitches to users of iOS 4 devices.

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Reply to
John Navas

guess what google does, only on a much bigger scale.

guess what the third party ad networks were doing.

if you don't want ads, don't buy apps with ads in them. very simple.

you're on some sort of crusade.

Reply to
nospam

nospam wrote in news:060720102001026180% snipped-for-privacy@nospam.invalid:

Er, ah, I believe he was reporting a news item to the group.

Just because it's Apple, does that make it heresy or a criminal offense?

Reply to
Larry

That is the inference.

Reply to
DanS

It would probably be more newsworthy if Apple didn't use purchase history to target their pitches. This doesn't seem to me to be a rare occurrence.

Ron P

Reply to
Bogey Man

Apple bans 'fraudulent' developer from iTunes

According to Apple, Thuat Nguyen hacked around 400 iTunes accounts, in order to use their credit card details to boost sales of his comic book apps.

Apple said it had tightened its security as a result of the hack.

It has put fraudulent activity on iTunes into the spotlight.

...

It will now ask users to enter their credit card security code more frequently when making purchases on iTunes.

It is not the first time that users have complained about their iTunes accounts being hacked but it is one of the first that an app bought using compromised accounts has dominated the charts.

...

Amit Klein, the chief technology officer of Trusteer, a company which provides security for online payments, thinks Apple could do more to prevent such breaches.

"Hacks on iTunes are not so rare, there is a constant stream of reports even though they don't make the headlines. Apple could have better fraud detection and interact with iTune users better," he said.

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Reply to
John Navas

The JavaScript engine in Google's Android 2.2 running on a Nexus One phone soundly spanks Apple's iOS 4 incarnation running on an iPhone 4.

...

The Ars testing discovered that in pure JavaScript performance, there's really no contest between Android 2.2 and iOS 4. When running the industry-standard SunSpider benchmark, Android 2.2 was nearly twice as fast as Apple's offering.

iOS 4's comparative performance was even worse on Google's own V8 benchmark. Ars found Android 2.2 was well over four times as fast. Of course, V8 is a Googly benchmark, but 4X is 4X.

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COMMENT: Let the iExcuses begin!

Reply to
John Navas

your hypocrisy knows no bounds.

last year i told you safari was benchmarked as faster than other browsers and you wanted nothing to do with it. now that google has a faster javascript engine (*) you are happy as shit.

and that's separate from your blatant condescending pejorative comments such as iexcuses and ifans, as opposed to your perception about what other people say when they use ordinary words.

(*) javascript is just one test. now try it again with flash installed. pocketnow showed that the nexus one browser went from fastest to slowest when flash was installed.

Reply to
nospam

Meanwhile, at the alt.internet.wireless Job Justification Hearings, nospam chose the tried and tested strategy of:

Bet it still renders Flash faster than the iPhone's browser, though.

Reply to
alexd

nospam wrote in news:070720101344566033% snipped-for-privacy@nospam.invalid:

That just shows that Navas has a very blatant bias against Apple, so that makes any of his comments or opinions regarding them moot and meaningless.

Reply to
DanS

NavASS is moot and meaningless: whataya expect?

Reply to
George Kerby

installed.

while iOS Safari does awesome when flash is installed, eh?

Reply to
Aaron Leonard

Consumer Reports has confirmed what we already knew about iPhone 4 -- touching its external antenna produces noticeable reception problems -- but with that finding offered a damning conclusion: This phone is not recommended.

Ouch!

The verdict is a slap in the face to Apple, which earlier this month tried casting the iPhone 4 problem as an optical illusion, caused by the way the phone displays signal bars. Previously, Apple said that holding the iPhone 4 in certain ways can affect signal strength, but has also insisted that overall the phone gets better reception than any previous model. For unsatisfied customers, Apple recommends holding the phone differently or buying a bumper case.

That's not good enough for Consumer Reports, which tested three iPhone

4s in its radio frequency isolation room. Using a base-station emulator to simulate cell tower signals, lab testers found significant reception problems when holding the phone over its lower-left corner, especially when the signal was weak to begin with.

Phones with internal antennas, such as the Palm Pre and iPhone 3GS, didn't have the same reception issues. That's important, because Apple has claimed that signal loss when covering the antenna is "a fact of life for every wireless phone."

Consumer Reports confirmed that covering the iPhone 4's antenna with thick, non-conductive material, such as duct tape, fies the problem, and the group believes bumper cases will do the same. But despite loving everything else about the phone, including its sharp display and 720p video camera, Consumer Reports recommended downgrading to an iPhone 3GS or another brand.

If you've been following the iPhone 4 antenna debacle, there should be nothing shocking about Consumer Reports' findings. Experts and journalists have learned basically the same things in their field testing. Specifically, the phone gets better service most of the time, but when held over its lower-left corner, it risks dropped calls or lost reception in areas with low signal strength.

Still, the lab testing by Consumer Reports was conducted in a controlled environment, lending more credibility to the real-world evidence we've already seen. It's an embarrassment for Apple after the company's attempts to downplay the issue. I'm sure this report will come up in the class action lawsuits Apple faces, especially when the authority on what consumer products to buy says the iPhone 4 doesn't deserve your money.

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Reply to
John Navas

Motorola's Droid X goes on sale Thursday, and it couldn't have planned a better week to debut the iPhone 4 alternative. Anti-iPhone 4 rhetoric is growing in volume. There is the Consumer Reports slam on Apple's iPhone

4, a judge that just granted a lawsuit against Apple and AT&T class action status, and consumer sentiment that Apple is in faulty-antenna denial.

Call it a perfect storm of anti iPhone 4 propaganda, but it could lay the groundwork for one of the most successful Android phone launches yet. After all, the Droid X is a pretty impressive phone in its own right - iPhone flubs or not.

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Reply to
John Navas

Threads on the Apple support forum about the iPhone 4 are mysteriously disappearing. Perhaps it has just a little to do with the fact that Consumer Reports made it clear in their July 12 report that "Apple needs to come up with a permanent?and free?fix for the antenna problem before we can recommend the iPhone 4."

Is Apple doing the right thing here if they are wiping the forums clean when it comes to talk about Consumer Reports not so favorable review?

A negative news story and Apple starts removing comments instead of addressing them? That's bad business for already frustrated iPhone owners.

If you tried to access the forums, it's clear that moderators took the posts down. You'll get a clear message if you try: "Error: you do not have permission to view the requested forum or category."

This is not a glitch ... this is Apple controlling what they want you to read.

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Reply to
John Navas

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