Thursday, May 18, 2023

Bravo, Apple

Yes, the iPhone is a "Walled Garden" controlled by Apple.  But this is a benefit that you'd expect from a walled garden:

The Apple App Store supports more than 36 million registered Apple developers, but not all of those coding partners are benign. In a report on App Store safety this week, the computing giant noted that last year it booted nearly a half-million (428,000) developer accounts from the platform for carrying out fraud and abuse.

Apple said that in all, it prevented more than $2 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions in 2022, rejecting nearly 1.7 million app submissions for privacy violations, spammy or misleading features, or containing hidden or undocumented capabilities.

It also dismantled 282 million customer accounts for fraud and blocked nearly 105,000 Apple Developer Program enrollments for suspected malicious activities before they could submit apps to the App Store. And it detected and blocked more than 147 million fraudulent ratings and reviews.

This costs them money, but it keeps the App Store in better shape than the equivalent for Android which is stuffed to the gills with malware.  Well done, Apple.  Credit where credit is due.

2 comments:

Old NFO said...

I consider the iPhone the best of a bad lot of choices for that reason.

Aaron C. de Bruyn said...

I've run Android for nearly 15 years now.
Never *once* have I been infected by anything.
Never had my credit card numbers stolen.
Never had my data leaked.
Because I don't spend my time installing free apps and games.

The platform isn't the problem. It's the behavior.

Coincidentally, my phones have always cost less, and I've been able to do whatever *I* wanted with them instead of whatever Apple *allows* me to do with them.

At one point I visited FB HQ. It was pretty funny because a lot of their internal systems were down--things like scheduling conference rooms, video calls, internal signage and display walls, etc...

...it was because they got in a tiff with Apple and Apple disabled their developer account...which caused all the iPads and apps they had all over the place to become bricks.

I have never and will never use Apple crapware.

Use Android, and use your brain. Don't install crap software like "KIDZ BALL00N POPPER FREE GAME PLUS".

I don't need Apple and their gatekeepers to tell me that's a bad idea.