For instance, if you want to use a character other than the default, which is basically a duplicate of Charmander from the original Pokémon games, you need to cough up anywhere from $4.99 for the caveman to a whopping $99.99 for the Charizard look-alike. Then when you're actually playing the game, you're bombarded with offers for other purchases, like $1 to buy more firepower for your character or 20 extra lives for $10. Then there are the full-screen ads for other apps that randomly pop up on-screen in the middle of the game. 

Not surprisingly, the gameplay is beyond terrible. There doesn't seem to be any point outside of scamming people into paying for ridiculous add-ons. The biggest mystery is how this travesty got through Apple's App Store approval process despite apparently infringing on copyrighted Nintendo material and an all-around exploitive design. The games are also available on Google's less-restrictive Google Play market for Android. 

What To Watch Out For

Reviews are certainly a great way to keep others from downloading a terrible app; the first three reviews that show up are titled, respectively, "This should be criminal..," "This app is offensive," and "This should be illegal."  So you may wonder who gets fooled by this nonsense, but how about those unlucky parents with kids who know their Apple ID passwords. All it takes is clicking the Buy button and entering your password, and this game could end up costing some family hundreds of dollars.

In fact, the Top 10 in-app purchases list in the App Store indicates that the number-one item purchased by players is the "Role NO.1 and Unlock All" feature - for an absurd $99.99. 

So who is the mastermind behind this ingenious money-making machine? That would be a developer by the name of Mario Casas, designer of such other gems as Adventure Games Super Monster Bros Plus and Super Squirrel Bros by Mario Casas Games. They all share similar designs and the same in-app purchasing system.  

How To Report Bad Apps to Apple

The App Store has long wrestled with a proliferation of scam apps. IGN's iPhone Garbage series exposes a dark corner of the App Store where games like Krazy Kong (a Donkey Kong rip-off) and Legend of Zenda (a Zelda rip-off) somehow found a home. Apple seems to take an after-the-fact approach to rooting them out, as outlined here by iMore's Rene Ritchie:

Apple's approach seems to be that of YouTube - approve any app that meets technical criteria and then respond to publicity or legal takedown demands from copyright holders when and if they come in. It's one of the smartest, safest approaches, legally, for Apple. They certainly don't want to take on the responsibility of pre-emptively moderating intellectual property, and then have their necks on the lawsuit line when something slips through and the rights holders sue both the offending party and Apple.

So how do you report a bad app like Super Monster Bros By Adventure Time Pocket Free Games?  If you dropped a bundle on this game's purchases, Apple devotes a Web page to reporting issues with purchases. If you managed to hold on to your cash but still want to report the app, the best way is to go through iTunes Support. Be warned, though, Apple hasn't shown much inclination to substantially overhaul its review process to catch these specific types of tricks. So as long as these kinds of exploitive apps can make their creators easy money, they'll keep showing up.  

Update: The game, as well as all other titles from the same developer, are no longer available in the U.S. App Store. It's not clear whether or not they are still available in other countries, but we will update with that information as soon as we can. 

Apple CEO Tim Cook crowed at an investor conference earlier this year that Apple had paid $8 billion to developers since the App Store's launch. While this may sound impressive, that equates to around $3.4 billion to Apple over five years, or about $170 million per quarter.

Sound like a lot? It's not. 

The $170 Million Rounding Error

After all, just last quarter Apple notched $54.4 billion in revenues, nearly $31 billion coming from sales of the iPhone alone. $170 million in mobile app sales? Apple makes 3X that amount in the first day of a quarter.

Not that app sales are immaterial to Apple's business. On the contrary, apps make Apple's hardware more appealing. As beautiful as Apple's devices are, few would bother to buy them if they didn't come with a massive app ecosystem.

So apps matter to Apple. It's just the app revenue that really doesn't matter. Not even with the overall mobile app market blossoming to $25 billion in 2013, according to ABI Research. That's not where the real money is.

The Mobile App Economy

At least, not for Apple. But developers? They could use that money.

Even as app sales boom, generating revenue from mobile apps is something of a bust for developers, and it's getting worse. According to a VisionMobile report, 35% of mobile app developers "live below the app poverty line," in that they don't make enough money from app development to sustain themselves. Furthermore, research firm research2guidance recently released data indicating a 27% drop in average revenues per paid app, from $26,720 in 2011 to $19,560 in 2012.

That drop in top-line revenue is already hard to swallow, but becomes even more so for iOS developers, given how pricey they are to create relative to other platforms:

Hey, Apple, Can You Spare A Dime?

As such, and given Android's continued market share domination, it may be time for Apple to further encourage developers to stick with it by dropping its App Store cut. While dropping its share from 30% to 20%, 10%, or 0% won't hurt Apple's revenue profile, it could go a long way toward keeping developers' pockets full.

Of course, Google could (and likely would) simply follow suit. After all, Google, like Apple, doesn't rely on app revenue, instead monetizing mobile through advertising.  

But by moving first, Apple would not only generate goodwill, but it would reinforce developers' preference for iOS, as a recent Appcelerator and IDC survey shows:

Apple, in other words, doesn't need to win over developers, so much as it needs to give developers a bit more incentive to keep it top platform for them. As volumes start to shrink relative to Android, letting developers keep a bigger chunk of their App Store haul could go a long way toward encouraging developer loyalty.

Do you ever want to look like celebrities?

"Face Stealer" will turn your face into someone else in REALTIME. You can transform your face into anyone from celebrities, your friends, lover, Mona Lisa to anime characters. The app engages with your facial expressions and replaces your face with another person's face in real-time, which let you feel like being someone else. 

You can take photos of your transformations and send them via Email or share on Facebook, Twitter and Youtube.

We have not received enough ratings to display an average for the current version of this application.

You can change that.

Why the App Store Loses

On the surface, the Appthority study — released Tuesday during the RSA security conference in San Francisco  — appears to find iOS and Android apps equally culpable of privacy violations. Of the 10 top-selling apps the firm tested in each of five categories, 60% of the iOS apps shared data with advertising and analytics networks. So did 50% of Android apps.

A closer look, however, revealed that iOS apps were far leakier than their Android counterparts. A full 60% of iOS apps gathered your location data, 54% vacuumed up your contact lists and 14% siphoned information from your calendar. With Android apps, those percentages were 42%, 20% and zero, respectively — not exactly laudable, but certainly an improvement over the performance of Apple apps.

Encrypting user data was not a big priority for apps on either platform. All of the iOS apps sent unencrypted data to ad networks, while 92% of Android apps did the same.

Appthority says iOS apps fall short because ad networks are willing to pay more for user data from Apple devices, giving developers a greater incentive to gather and hand over as much information as possible. At the same time, there are more developers making iOS apps, so they have to work harder at making a buck — and that apparently tempts some to compromise on privacy.

"Developers are struggling to monetize, because it's hard to run a company giving apps for free or selling apps for 99 cents," says Domingo Guerra, president and co-founder of Appthority. "So, in turn, they use the ad networks to try and get money, and the ad networks will pay more money if the developers share more data on the users."

The Overall Numbers

Appthority tested business, education, entertainment and finance apps, as well as games. Entertainment apps were the worst when it came to user privacy. This category had the highest number of apps that tracked location and shared data with ad networks. Education and finance apps posed the smallest threat — relatively speaking, at least — to user privacy.

Individual developers built roughly 80% of the apps tested. Companies with iOS apps in the study included Apple, Intuit, Kids Games Club and PayPal. On the Android side, the companies included Imangi Studios, Intuit, PayPal and Intellijoy.

Appthority's last report was in July 2012, when the apps tested posed a slightly higher risk to user privacy. However, the study was done differently. It analyzed the top 50 free apps in each platform, regardless of category.

Last year's study also showed iOS apps gathering more user data than Android apps, though less than iOS apps this year.

The Trend

Guerra predicts the next Appthority study in three months will show a decline in risky app behavior, thanks to recent government crackdowns on online privacy abuse.

This month, the Federal Trade Commission announced an $800,000 settlement with social networking start-up Path, which was charged with uploading users' address book data without permission and gathering personal information on several thousand children without parental consent.

In addition, some states are also taking a hard stand on privacy. California Attorney General Kamala Harris last year formed a Privacy Enforcement and Protection Unit to prosecute companies that violated the state's privacy laws.

While prosecuting scofflaws can be a deterrent, sometimes the best way to protect privacy is to pay for an app, rather than hunt for something similar that's free. In general, paid apps gather less user data than free apps, Guerra says. "Your privacy is worth more than 99 cents, so just buy the app."

Image courtesy of ShutterStock

In addition for 500px's own app, the third-party 500px app ISO500, whose parent company 500px acquired because of ISO500's excellent integration, has also received notice that its app will be removed from the App Store shortly - for the same reason.

But here's the thing: Flipboard integrates completely with 500px as well. Everything you can do on 500px's app, you can do on Flipboard. Is Apple going to pull Flipboard as well? What about Tumblr, Instagram and all browsers - including Apple's own Safari? You can get to nude images with them pretty easily, too.

How 500px Got The News

500px Chief Operating Officer Evgeny Tchebotarev told ReadWrite that Apple called about an upcoming minor bugfix update to the app around 9pm Monday night. Apple told Tchebotarev the update would be rejected "because it is too easy to look for nude photos in search." The person on the phone initially said the app would be reverted to the earlier version.

"We said, 'it's fine, we can make the changes within a day,'" Tchebotarev says, "but in an hour, we got an email [from Apple] saying it would be pulled anyway, not just reverted." Though the representative he spoke to initially said the existing version could stay, Apple had second thoughts and decided to pull the app altogether.

The update changed nothing about search or the availability of nude photos in the app. It was just a minor release to improve performance and fix some bugs. Just as it has the whole time, the app defaults to a Safe Search mode that excludes nudity, and you have to log in on the desktop version to change that.

Tchebotarev says 500px is issuing a hot fix on the server side in order to satisfy Apple and get the app back into the store as soon as possible. "It's a little rough," he says, "just filters out some search terms. It's not the elegant solution we are usually looking for." Once Apple lets the app back in, 500px will be able to figure out a more permanent fix.

What's The Deal, Apple?

So will Apple pull every app that lets its users find nudity? This rhetorical question is getting tiresome. Apple has always been weird when it comes to defining what kinds of culture it deems appropriate for its users. It has also always been cagey and inconsistent with developers when applying these rules to the App Store.

Apple is rarely clear and upfront with its developer community about why and how these policies are applied. Usually, as with 500px, it's vague and confusing. Sometimes, as in another case on which ReadWrite has reported, it's completely inscrutable. Is the 500px takedown just the overzealous action of a new app reviewer? Or is there a whole new crackdown going on?

"What I've been thinking in the last hour is that our app['s name] starts with a number, so maybe they are getting stricter with not-safe-for-work apps, and ours was at the top of the list," Tchebotarev says. If that's the case, and this issue spreads beyond the apps that plug into 500px, we'll keep you posted.

We've reached out to Apple for comment, and though we probably won't get a response, we'll update the story if we do.

Practice Range allows people to shoot at practice targets with various guns, including assault rifles, all while trying to teach users safe gun practices. It is a clever ploy from the NRA, releasing a relatively docile app ostensibly targeted towards gun safety. The NRA can turn the conversation away from gun control and back towards society and the NRA's own stance that violent video games and media are more to blame for violence in the United States than the actual weapons themselves. 

Gaming A Political Message

The Courage Campaign, an online activist group, does not quite share the NRA’s so-called altruistic opinion of the Practice Range app. It has started a petition on SignOn.org to urging Apple’s CEO Tim Cook to reject the NRA app. 

"This is a classic example of everything that is wrong with the NRA. Instead of coming to the table with constructive ideas to reduce gun violence, the NRA is instead developing a video game that glorifies guns and gun violence. It is yet another shameful example, in a long list of shameful examples, of the destructive role the NRA plays in reducing gun violence and making our schools, communities and streets safer. We are calling on Apple to reject this app. It has no business being in the hands of kids across this country,” Adam Bink, director of online programs at Courage Campaign said in a statement. 

Do not get me wrong, I do not like guns. Most of the staff at ReadWrite are not particularly fond of them either. We like smartphones and tablets, big data and open Web standards and free access to information. But, this petition is a misguided in its direct assault on the NRA’s app…  just because the NRA is the app's sponsor. 

Fundamentally, this is a conversation about censorship. 

The C-Word

Part of the argument against the app is that when it was originally released, it was approved for “ages four and up.” As of Tuesday, that had been changed to ages 12 and up and warns of intense and realistic violence, so that part of the argument is moot.

The game, developed by MEDL Media, is essentially a mailer for the NRA’s political message in app form. As shameful or manipulative as that may be, it is not the job of Apple to censor the NRA and its relatively innocuous app. Many other companies, lobbying groups and organizations use Apple’s App Store for marketing and branding purposes and to deny one because some people may not like its message would set a bad precedent for how Apple approves apps going forward.

Apple does not have a particularly good record on censorship. The company’s App Store reviewers are supposed to make judgment calls on what Apple views as “too objectionable” for its users on an app-by-app basis. Plenty of violent video games (including ultra-graphic first-person-shooter games) make it in to the App Store. Courage Campaign does not seem to mind those. Yet, when an app that highlights data about U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, Apple shoots it down for objectionable content. Apple has also censored apps in the past, like the unofficial Wikileaks app, Playboy and anti-homosexual apps such as Exodus International and Manhattan Declaration. Pro-Nazi apps have been banned, as well as a pro-Dalai Lama app in China. Depending on who you are, you are either happy or enraged by Apple’s decisions to censor these apps. 

Apple is a private company and, really, can do whatever it likes when it comes to content on its App Store. That does not necessarily mean that it should. It frequently will bow to the wishes of governments and large organizations. The NRA has every right to get its message out to the public through the App Store as the Dalai Lama does in China. 

What we end up with is a case of the blind leading the blind, following the blind.

Courage Campaign is blind for calling for censorship of the NRA Practice Range app. The NRA is blind for commissioning the app in the first place, being manipulative and shameful in its stance on gun control and emphasis on media-induced violence. Apple is blind for its arbitrary and consistently inconsistent App Store censorship practices.

Instead, they'll only be able to change screenshots when they submit new versions for review. This will put a stop to a common scammer tactic that tricks people into buying fake apps.

A classic example from recent history: There are no Nintendo games on the App Store, unfortunately. Nintendo has never licensed its content to Apple. But people would love to play classic Game Boy games on their iPhones, and they'd pay good money to do so. One malicious developer took advantage of this in February.

The developer submitted an unofficial Pokemon Yellow app using screenshots that passed Apple's (often flawed) review process and then switched them out for images taken from Nintendo's game. Unsuspecting customers then paid $0.99 to download it, only to find that it didn't do anything; it just showed a splash screen and then crashed.

The app reached number two on the paid app charts before Apple figured out what happened and pulled it from the store.

Another example from November imitated the popular PC game Minecraft. It was called Mooncraft, and the developer charged $1.99 for it. If you paid, here's what you got (hint: it wasn't Minecraft):

Cabel Sasser of Panic Software explained the scam on the Panic blog:

1. Scammer makes an extremely simple iOS app and submits it to Apple.
2. Once it’s approved, they change the screenshots, description, and name — things you can edit at any time. Piggyback off a popular game!
3. Buy hundreds of fake ★★★★★ reviews, somehow.
4. Sit back and relax as you slowly and gently travel towards hell.

Fortunately, that's no longer possible now that Apple has closed the loophole on screenshots. Now, assuming there are no oversights, fake screenshots won't be able to slip past the review process. Unfortunately, this also means that good developers can't update their screenshots as easily. It's yet another example of the few bad actors making life in the App Store more difficult for the honest devs.

So, the bad apples in the App Store once again make it harder on the rest of us. Thanks! [I do think it’ll help, just wish it wasn’t needed]

— David Barnard (@drbarnard) January 9, 2013

Lead image courtesy of lev radin / Shutterstock.com

Mobile Has Officially Exploded

The news today from Apple is yet another affirmation that 2012 was the year that mobile exploded. Just a year ago, in January 2011, Apple said that it had 550,000 apps in the App Store and that it had paid $4 billion to developers. The company nearly doubled that total in 2012 and added 225,000 more iOS apps to its repository. In terms of downloads, Apple said it had seen 15 billion downloads as of July 2011.

Apple highlighted a few particular success stories from the App Store in 2012. For instance, the runaway hit game Temple Run was downloaded more than 75 million times. For a small development studio, that is certainly an impressive total. 

Apple noted that more than 300,000 apps in the App Store were specifically developed for the iPad.

Take That, CES!

The timing of Apple’s announcement is interesting. The eyes of the technology world this week are turned towards the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). That makes it a perfect time for Apple to make a large, splashy announcement to steal the thunder from all the new smartphones, tablets and televisions on display in Las Vegas  This is not a new tactic from Apple, a company that has never really embraced the madness of CES, preferring to hold individual announcements and events like its World Wide Developers Conference where the spotlight falls firmly on Apple.

But it is unlike Apple to make this announcement on a stand-alone basis. Usually, when Apple makes announcements of this sort, it  ties the news to a new device release or a quarterly earnings call. For instance, last year Apple announced in its Q1 earnings that it had paid developers $4 billion. The last we heard from Apple on total apps in the App Store came during its fall announcements for the iPhone 5. In September 2012, Apple said that it had 700,000 apps with 35 billion downloads. 

Estimating Growth

We can approximate some growth figures for the iOS App Store based on Apple's information: The App Store added about 75,000 apps between Sept. 12, 2012 (the day of the iPhone 5 release) and Jan. 7, 2013. That constitutes 641 new apps in the App Store per day - and more than 19,000 new apps every month. 

Top image courtesy Shutterstock.