Just to make you guys aware, that I’ve been conversing with two iOS developers who happened to have their iOS apps ‘cloned’, not just copied, but the ‘clone’ apps even re-use your original artwork and app name in an attempt to capitalize on your business.
With both these developers saying that Apple doesn’t seem to care, I contacted Apple (As I can’t stand these copy cat/cloning companies) and Apple advised me of a special form to fill in.
The good news is that it works! So if you ever find yourself with a ‘clone’ app, simply use this form to contest it with Apple.
http://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/appstorenotices/
[quote=30464:@Sam Rowlands]Just to make you guys aware, that I’ve been conversing with two iOS developers who happened to have their iOS apps ‘cloned’, not just copied, but the ‘clone’ apps even re-use your original artwork and app name in an attempt to capitalize on your business.
With both these developers saying that Apple doesn’t seem to care, I contacted Apple (As I can’t stand these copy cat/cloning companies) and Apple advised me of a special form to fill in.
The good news is that it works! So if you ever find yourself with a ‘clone’ app, simply use this form to contest it with Apple.
http://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/appstorenotices/[/quote]
This is a real problem. It got a lot of visibility last year and a couple of interesting pieces this year I’m not able to find out now.
http://gigaom.com/2012/08/31/apple-gives-developers-tool-to-dispute-cloned-apps-or-content/
This is a very good recent piece in Ars about all this:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/08/how-app-store-grifters-clone-an-overnight-success-to-make-a-quick-buck/
Thank you very much Sam and Eduardo for sharing this information.
You are both friendly and very helpfull people. Your involvement in this community is very much appreciated.