For the second consecutive year, Apple communicates, in figures, on the efforts made to secure its App Store, and therefore the user experience. The advanced data makes you a little dizzy by the gigantism of the incomes and the tasks that they reveal.
A few days before the opening of WWDC, its major annual conference intended above all for developers, Apple again this year reminded everyone that the App Store is the cornerstone of the security of the user experience on iOS. . One seems inseparable from the other.
Anyway, for the second year in a row, Apple has just published a series of figures which tends to demonstrate the importance of its download kiosk as a means of protecting users, developers, and therefore its economic model. …
Still an astronomical amount
Because, in this case, it is the two sides of the App Store that are affected by the first figure communicated. In 2021, the App Store would have avoided fraudulent transactions for the amount of nearly $1.5 billion. This is slightly less than the amount advanced by Tim Cook’s teams last year. In 2020, more than $1.5 billion in illegal transactions had been blocked.
In any case, this gives an overview of the sums brewed and generated by Apple via its App Store. This figure is all the more striking, and so to speak amusing, since the various Apple officials, who testified during the trial between their company and Epic Games, were unable to say whether the App Store is profitable…
Anyway for 2020, still, Apple announced that it had blocked purchases made with more than three million stolen bank cards, the trend in 2021 is on the rise with 3.3 million stolen and intercepted cards on time.
Developers and apps under surveillance
An increase that can also be found on the side of fraudulent developer accounts banned. In 2020, Apple had 470,000. In 2021, there were more than 802,000. A real explosion which undoubtedly demonstrates both the seriousness of Apple’s effort and the attractiveness of its ecosystem for unscrupulous players.
But this fight nevertheless seems to pay off since the number ofrejected apps because they contain hidden or undocumented functions is down from over 48,000 to over 34,500.
In contrast, apps invalidated during the verification process because they were considered spam, a shameless copy of another program or intended to deceive users were more numerous in 2021, more than 157,000, compared to more of 150,000 in 2020.
Similarly, the number of rejected applications for breach of confidentiality rules – which have become stricter – is also on the rise, as it fell from more than 215,000 in 2020 to 343,000 in 2021.
Furthermore, the teams of the Californian giant point out that they have accompanied more than 107,000 new developers so that they can publish their apps on the App Store, over “a process which can be iterative since it happens that at the first examination, apps are not finalized or contain bugs affecting their operation”.
In total, last year, Apple would have “stopped more than 1.6 million downloads or updates of dubious or vulnerable apps from fraudsters”.
The thorny issue of ratings and reviews
Finally, in response to an often decried point, Apple highlights its effort to control ratings and reviews, which, when manipulated, can be used to fool users. In 2021, more than 94 million reviews, and more than 170 million ratings would have been blocked before publication. Of course, some may have slipped through the cracks, and Apple’s moderation teams reportedly removed an additional 610,000 reviews after posting, “following reports and manual review.”
It will be understood, Apple makes great efforts, throughout the year. Ultimately, these figures are there, as much to reassure users as to remind them that a kiosk of safe and efficient downloads for the entire ecosystem requires investment and work. The legislators, who are working to open the iOS platform to sideloading, will no doubt have received the message. Even if the latter omits a central argument, that of freedom of choice.
Source :
Apple