How iOS developers game the App Store: naming apps with popular keywords, tricking users to sign up for subscriptions, buying fake ratings and reviews, and more
I've been pestering Apple for years publicly and privately about the manipulation and outright scams going on in the App Store.
Context & Ripple Effects
David Barnard's 2018 write-up lands mid-arc in a scam pattern the coverage had already documented: a year earlier, deceptive security apps abusing search ads were tricking users into expensive subscriptions, and Apple's response hadn't stopped the playbook. His point — built from years of public and private pestering — is that the manipulation isn't fringe but structural: keyword-stuffed names, deceptive subscription flows, and purchased ratings all exploit how App Store search and charts rank apps.
The years after vindicated the complaint at scale. Kosta Eleftheriou's one-man fraud hunting surfaced top-grossing apps with fake reviews and absurd subscription pricing, an analysis found nearly 2% of the 1,000 highest-grossing apps were scams that may have cost users $48M, and by 2023 a non-affiliated "ChatGPT" lookalike was still charting as a top paid app.
First-order effects
- Honest iOS developers compete for discovery against rivals who buy rankings with fake reviews and keyword-bait names, so legitimate apps lose chart placement they can't ethically buy.
- Users signing up through deceptive flows are locked into subscriptions they didn't meaningfully consent to, with Apple taking its cut of each fraudulent renewal.
Second-order effects
- Because Apple's enforcement lags, the policing job shifts to independent researchers like Eleftheriou, whose public exposés become the de facto pressure mechanism forcing Apple to remove specific apps.
- Each exposed scam raises the reputational cost of Apple's 'curated store' positioning, handing critics of the App Store's commission model fresh evidence that the 15–30% cut buys imperfect safety.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, App Store review quality becomes a standing regulatory and antitrust exhibit — the same curation claim Apple uses to justify its closed model is contradicted by chart-topping scams, a tension the 2021–2023 coverage kept renewing.
- Scam economics self-reinforce: subscription revenue from lookalike apps funds more fake reviews and ad spend, meaning periodic takedowns treat symptoms while the ranking-and-discovery mechanics that reward manipulation stay in place.
The trend: App Store fraud has persisted from 2017 through 2023 despite Apple's curation claims, with independent researchers replacing slow official enforcement as the main check on scam apps.