17 ms·

Apple removes $1k featureless iPhone application (2008)

109 points by EndXA 6y ago

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
alex_g 6y ago
I remember this. There were several other copycats but never as expensive as that one. It's been 12 years now and Apple still has not managed to find a solution to understanding the difference between excessively expensive scam/child-predatory apps vs justifiably high priced apps.
- CharlesW 6y ago
  > …Apple still has not managed to find a solution to understanding the difference between excessively expensive scam/child-predatory apps vs justifiably high priced apps. They have from my POV. (1) They're rare enough (in a store with 2m+ apps) that we're discussing an bizarre exception from 2008. (2) They offer protections to help avoid the problem (e.g. parental controls). (3) Refunds (in my experience) are painless.
  - ta2987 6y ago
    > (1) They're rare enough (in a store with 2m+ apps) that we're discussing an bizarre exception from 2008. You seem to misunderstand, this is one of the "justifiably high priced apps."
  - alex_g 6y ago
    It's not an exception, there are quite a few. Not a week goes by I don't come across an app that is clearly duping people into extremely expensive subscriptions, while at the same time, developers are having apps rejected due to higher than normal pricing.
CapriciousCptl 6y ago
In 2008 an app charging $1,000 that told people you were rich was censored. In 2021 we celebrate non-fungible tokens, 6-figure digital basketball cards and million dollar memes.
- 0_____0 6y ago
  who is this 'we' you speak of
- alsetmusic 6y ago
  > In 2008 an app charging $1,000 that told people you were rich was censored. That’s not censorship. It’s protecting customers from being duped into buying something they don’t understand and getting ripped off. TFA quotes an app review where someone felt scammed. The dev is quoted as saying he didn’t want people to buy it by accident and then feel cheated: > "I don't want to collect money from people who did this by accident and I am glad that Apple returned the money for two orders," Heinrich said. It sounds like he had good intent, was following the rules. It still wasn’t a good app to be in the App Store.
  - blunte 6y ago
    If someone chooses to drop 1k to buy any app, one must assume they made some consideration before buying. Conversely, there are countless free apps (Facebook-owned included) which extract far more value than 1,000usd from their users... and the users are completely unaware because the price of the app didn't give them pause.
    - kube-system 6y ago
      That might be true, if we assume the buyers are adults who are using their own phone and paying with their own money. I don't think there were many spending controls at the time.
      - blunte 6y ago
        probably not; but the early adopters of that technology were probably upper class people who could survive with and deal with a financial snafu of 1000$. what really got people (and apple) worked up was the idea that someone could create a "nothing" and make a lot of money with that. now we laugh because we can all create crypto tokens and sell them to naive investors.
alsetmusic 6y ago
I actually find this pretty interesting, as I read it as further evidence of Apple's inability to properly police the App Store for violations and scams. > But Apple couldn't pull it down before curious aristocrats -- eight of them -- had purchased it. Six people from the United States, one from Germany and one from France dropped a grand for the gem in the first 24 hours it was available, Heinrich said. This was shortly after the App Store opened, when it was theoretically possible for Apple to have reasonable awareness of its contents and respond to customer feedback. Clearly, the company wanted to protect its customers from getting ripped off. Likely, there were things added to their process for app review to prevent this from happening again in the future. But they can't possibly stay on top of all the edge and corner cases where an inexperienced reviewer misses a detail. Am I saying that they can't do better than they do now? No. I'm not excusing their multiple failures. There are lots of obvious scams, such as high-cost subscriptions with dark patterns to induce accidental sign-up. But this sorta makes the case, to me, at least, that some degree of regulation needs to be applied to the industry. And until reading this, I was mostly against government types who don't understand the industry from stepping in.
- viraptor 6y ago
  > But this sorta makes the case, to me, at least, that some degree of regulation needs to be applied to the industry. I don't get it. We've had lots of obvious scam apps available for ages. We've had problem with moderation. We could see lots of faults with both the marketplace and apple's policies. But what tips the scale for you was an app which literally said in the description it does nothing and is just a status symbol? It wasn't even trying to trick anyone. Why is that bad in any way?
- amelius 6y ago
  My mom signed up for one such "high-cost" subscription, which cost her $50 in the end (she needed to scan a QR code, went to the App Store and clicked the first app with this functionality). I think if Apple wants to use the argument that the App Store "protects its users", then they should guarantee it, i.e., protection or your money back.
  - 6y ago
sneak 6y ago
The bigger problem, in my view, is that Apple demands a working email address and phone number (and a street address which is thankfully not verified) even to download $0 apps. It also, of course, transmits your fixed and unchangeable system serial number to Apple to obtain any apps. You can't opt out of this.
- HeckFeck 6y ago
  Every Linux distro has been managing very well without those since forever, curiously enough. But we all know why they want that data. It's not a technical necessity.
  - ece 6y ago
    This is true for Android too, you can install F-Droid, disable every Google app (or uninstall) and use it like a normal phone with apps on F-Droid or whatever you want to sideload.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago
  The even bigger problem, which could be regulated if US legislatures had the will, is that Apple is comfortable if consumers believe an item of personal information is required to participate in some Apple service (like an Apple App Store) when truly it isn't. This is why we see so many back-and-forths in forums between users about what is actually required. Apple is comfortable with the confusion. If people are submiting more personal information to Apple than is actually needed, this is not a problem for Apple. Not in the US, anyway. The $1K app seems like an early example of how "apps" marketed through Apple (App Store) were immediately being used by "developers" to gather personal information about Apple users, such as indicia of net worth. Having identified a segment of users willing to pay $1K for nothing, via an "app" download, seems like it would be instantly valuable to online advertisers.
  - zeroimpl 6y ago
    The seller of the app knows practically nothing about the buyer, basically just the IP address when they launch the app, and other vague details.
qwerty456127 6y ago
> I saw this app with a few friends and we jokingly clicked 'buy' thinking it was a joke, to see what would happen. It should not be possible to buy anything this expensive with a press of a button. They should ask for additional, confirmations, even call the buyer if it's this much. Also unconditional refund should be available for every app during at least some time after it's purchased. I actually had no idea Apple users can't return an app they don't want.
- eli 6y ago
  Pretty sure it does and always did ask for confirmation. The quote doesn’t say “with only one click”
- 51Cards 6y ago
  This was in 2008. I can't remember the functionality of the app store in 2008.
- mstade 6y ago
  Apple does have a refund process for apps and other digital media[1] but the terms seem to differ depending on region. I’ve used it several times, and while it’s not obvious at first, a simple web search led me to the instructions and it’s worked fine the handful of times I’ve had to use it. I’ve had my money refunded within days, no questions asked, even if I’ve used the app. It even worked for subscriptions, though I think it only works if you cancel and ask for a refund before the first renewal. [1]: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204084 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204084
- nimchimpsky 6y ago
  > It should not be possible to buy anything this expensive with a press of a button. What he fuck are you talking about.
HeckFeck 6y ago
The $1000 'I'm rich' application eventually evolved into the $1000 iPhone itself. And the $1000 Apple monitor stand. It's a tautology!
avolcano 6y ago
Of course, in a post-IAP world, you can just charge users multiple $50 "best value" virtual currency purchases over several months, which they can then use to roll for video game items that will 99% of the time be of no use to them.
- zepto 6y ago
  That’s how Epic made more than half a billion dollars on iOS.
- matheusmoreira 6y ago
  I don't understand why any app store still allows this. Literally worse than gambling since that at least gives people an actual chance to win actual money. These games probably even vary the winning chances to hook new players and make rich players spend more.
wayneftw 6y ago
My favorite less than useless iPhone app of all time is "Send me to heaven" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Send_Me_To_Heaven https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Send_Me_To_Heaven At least Google still carries it.
imglorp 6y ago
Around that same time the fart app on Apple was bringing in 10k per day. https://www.wired.com/2008/12/iphone-fart-app/ https://www.wired.com/2008/12/iphone-fart-app/
- kube-system 6y ago
  To be fair, 99 cents is a penny cheaper than a whoopee cushion at the dollar tree. It doesn't seem as unreasonable when compared to the analog world, and probably doesn't pose the same magnitude of financial risk to unintentional purchasers or to the payment processors.
blunte 6y ago
this bothers me far, far less than free or weekly subscription sh*tware.
caffed 6y ago
I remember when this happened. I think it was just a sprite of a jewel like a ruby or sapphire as of that was it. I don’t know if anyone actually bought it. I think the description stated that it really didn’t do anything but was just for bragging rights.
- alsetmusic 6y ago
  All of this was covered in TFA.
ksec 6y ago
That was when App Store was used to bring in more iPhone customers, and a curated app store that all Apps should be of high quality and before the Internet / Smartphone took over everyday life, i.e Apps were not a necessity. And then in 2015 Apple decided to push for Services Strategy, no longer is App Store mainly used to attract customers, but an extraction of values that lives within the iPhone ecosystem. Sometime post 2015, what is now known as Reader's apps could no longer be without a Sign up button ( Unless you have specific exemption ). An In-App Real Person teaching class would require IAP ( it was scrapped in after the pandemic ) A $1K featureless Apps becomes a monthly or even weekly fraud subscription. And the push to everything subscription. While still not offering upgrade pricing for software.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
The most noticeable is the 0.1 MB file size. Nowadays, this app would probably be at least 20 MB of bloat.
- eyelidlessness 6y ago
  Yes, that’s definitely more noticeable than an app charging $1k to do nothing
joncrane 6y ago
Wasn't there also an app where the point was to try to get throw it as high as possible? It supposedly used the accelerometer/altimeter to measure how high you threw the phone to assign points, but really it was just a joke to try to get people to break their phones.
- snypher 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Send_Me_To_Heaven https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Send_Me_To_Heaven
donohoe 6y ago
When this happened I made a web page (for fun) that used its logo and you just bookmarked it to Homescreen.
bradfitz 6y ago
If I'm going to give Apple $1,000, I better get a monitor stand out of it at least!
- sitkack 6y ago
  Go for the wheels, they are self balancing now.
dang 6y ago
Discussed at the time: 'I Am Rich' makes author exactly that, does little else - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=268105 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=268105 - Aug 2008 (13 comments) Others?
rishabhd 6y ago
I remember this, I feel old now.
pmob241 6y ago
Rip a great app

109 points by EndXA 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

I remember this. There were several other copycats but never as expensive as that one. It's been 12 years now and Apple still has not managed to find a solution to understanding the difference between excessively expensive scam/child-predatory apps vs justifiably high priced apps.

CharlesW 6y ago
> …Apple still has not managed to find a solution to understanding the difference between excessively expensive scam/child-predatory apps vs justifiably high priced apps. They have from my POV. (1) They're rare enough (in a store with 2m+ apps) that we're discussing an bizarre exception from 2008. (2) They offer protections to help avoid the problem (e.g. parental controls). (3) Refunds (in my experience) are painless.
- ta2987 6y ago
  > (1) They're rare enough (in a store with 2m+ apps) that we're discussing an bizarre exception from 2008. You seem to misunderstand, this is one of the "justifiably high priced apps."
- alex_g 6y ago
  It's not an exception, there are quite a few. Not a week goes by I don't come across an app that is clearly duping people into extremely expensive subscriptions, while at the same time, developers are having apps rejected due to higher than normal pricing.

CapriciousCptl 6y ago

In 2008 an app charging $1,000 that told people you were rich was censored. In 2021 we celebrate non-fungible tokens, 6-figure digital basketball cards and million dollar memes.

0_____0 6y ago
who is this 'we' you speak of
alsetmusic 6y ago
> In 2008 an app charging $1,000 that told people you were rich was censored. That’s not censorship. It’s protecting customers from being duped into buying something they don’t understand and getting ripped off. TFA quotes an app review where someone felt scammed. The dev is quoted as saying he didn’t want people to buy it by accident and then feel cheated: > "I don't want to collect money from people who did this by accident and I am glad that Apple returned the money for two orders," Heinrich said. It sounds like he had good intent, was following the rules. It still wasn’t a good app to be in the App Store.
- blunte 6y ago
  If someone chooses to drop 1k to buy any app, one must assume they made some consideration before buying. Conversely, there are countless free apps (Facebook-owned included) which extract far more value than 1,000usd from their users... and the users are completely unaware because the price of the app didn't give them pause.
  - kube-system 6y ago
    That might be true, if we assume the buyers are adults who are using their own phone and paying with their own money. I don't think there were many spending controls at the time.
    - blunte 6y ago
      probably not; but the early adopters of that technology were probably upper class people who could survive with and deal with a financial snafu of 1000$. what really got people (and apple) worked up was the idea that someone could create a "nothing" and make a lot of money with that. now we laugh because we can all create crypto tokens and sell them to naive investors.

alsetmusic 6y ago

I actually find this pretty interesting, as I read it as further evidence of Apple's inability to properly police the App Store for violations and scams. > But Apple couldn't pull it down before curious aristocrats -- eight of them -- had purchased it. Six people from the United States, one from Germany and one from France dropped a grand for the gem in the first 24 hours it was available, Heinrich said. This was shortly after the App Store opened, when it was theoretically possible for Apple to have reasonable awareness of its contents and respond to customer feedback. Clearly, the company wanted to protect its customers from getting ripped off. Likely, there were things added to their process for app review to prevent this from happening again in the future. But they can't possibly stay on top of all the edge and corner cases where an inexperienced reviewer misses a detail. Am I saying that they can't do better than they do now? No. I'm not excusing their multiple failures. There are lots of obvious scams, such as high-cost subscriptions with dark patterns to induce accidental sign-up. But this sorta makes the case, to me, at least, that some degree of regulation needs to be applied to the industry. And until reading this, I was mostly against government types who don't understand the industry from stepping in.

viraptor 6y ago
> But this sorta makes the case, to me, at least, that some degree of regulation needs to be applied to the industry. I don't get it. We've had lots of obvious scam apps available for ages. We've had problem with moderation. We could see lots of faults with both the marketplace and apple's policies. But what tips the scale for you was an app which literally said in the description it does nothing and is just a status symbol? It wasn't even trying to trick anyone. Why is that bad in any way?
amelius 6y ago
My mom signed up for one such "high-cost" subscription, which cost her $50 in the end (she needed to scan a QR code, went to the App Store and clicked the first app with this functionality). I think if Apple wants to use the argument that the App Store "protects its users", then they should guarantee it, i.e., protection or your money back.
- 6y ago

sneak 6y ago

The bigger problem, in my view, is that Apple demands a working email address and phone number (and a street address which is thankfully not verified) even to download $0 apps. It also, of course, transmits your fixed and unchangeable system serial number to Apple to obtain any apps. You can't opt out of this.

HeckFeck 6y ago
Every Linux distro has been managing very well without those since forever, curiously enough. But we all know why they want that data. It's not a technical necessity.
- ece 6y ago
  This is true for Android too, you can install F-Droid, disable every Google app (or uninstall) and use it like a normal phone with apps on F-Droid or whatever you want to sideload.
1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago
The even bigger problem, which could be regulated if US legislatures had the will, is that Apple is comfortable if consumers believe an item of personal information is required to participate in some Apple service (like an Apple App Store) when truly it isn't. This is why we see so many back-and-forths in forums between users about what is actually required. Apple is comfortable with the confusion. If people are submiting more personal information to Apple than is actually needed, this is not a problem for Apple. Not in the US, anyway. The $1K app seems like an early example of how "apps" marketed through Apple (App Store) were immediately being used by "developers" to gather personal information about Apple users, such as indicia of net worth. Having identified a segment of users willing to pay $1K for nothing, via an "app" download, seems like it would be instantly valuable to online advertisers.
- zeroimpl 6y ago
  The seller of the app knows practically nothing about the buyer, basically just the IP address when they launch the app, and other vague details.

qwerty456127 6y ago

> I saw this app with a few friends and we jokingly clicked 'buy' thinking it was a joke, to see what would happen. It should not be possible to buy anything this expensive with a press of a button. They should ask for additional, confirmations, even call the buyer if it's this much. Also unconditional refund should be available for every app during at least some time after it's purchased. I actually had no idea Apple users can't return an app they don't want.

eli 6y ago
Pretty sure it does and always did ask for confirmation. The quote doesn’t say “with only one click”
51Cards 6y ago
This was in 2008. I can't remember the functionality of the app store in 2008.
mstade 6y ago
Apple does have a refund process for apps and other digital media[1] but the terms seem to differ depending on region. I’ve used it several times, and while it’s not obvious at first, a simple web search led me to the instructions and it’s worked fine the handful of times I’ve had to use it. I’ve had my money refunded within days, no questions asked, even if I’ve used the app. It even worked for subscriptions, though I think it only works if you cancel and ask for a refund before the first renewal. [1]: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204084 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204084
nimchimpsky 6y ago
> It should not be possible to buy anything this expensive with a press of a button. What he fuck are you talking about.

HeckFeck 6y ago

The $1000 'I'm rich' application eventually evolved into the $1000 iPhone itself. And the $1000 Apple monitor stand. It's a tautology!

avolcano 6y ago

Of course, in a post-IAP world, you can just charge users multiple $50 "best value" virtual currency purchases over several months, which they can then use to roll for video game items that will 99% of the time be of no use to them.

zepto 6y ago
That’s how Epic made more than half a billion dollars on iOS.
matheusmoreira 6y ago
I don't understand why any app store still allows this. Literally worse than gambling since that at least gives people an actual chance to win actual money. These games probably even vary the winning chances to hook new players and make rich players spend more.

wayneftw 6y ago

My favorite less than useless iPhone app of all time is "Send me to heaven" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Send_Me_To_Heaven https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Send_Me_To_Heaven At least Google still carries it.

imglorp 6y ago

Around that same time the fart app on Apple was bringing in 10k per day. https://www.wired.com/2008/12/iphone-fart-app/ https://www.wired.com/2008/12/iphone-fart-app/

kube-system 6y ago
To be fair, 99 cents is a penny cheaper than a whoopee cushion at the dollar tree. It doesn't seem as unreasonable when compared to the analog world, and probably doesn't pose the same magnitude of financial risk to unintentional purchasers or to the payment processors.

blunte 6y ago

this bothers me far, far less than free or weekly subscription sh*tware.

caffed 6y ago

I remember when this happened. I think it was just a sprite of a jewel like a ruby or sapphire as of that was it. I don’t know if anyone actually bought it. I think the description stated that it really didn’t do anything but was just for bragging rights.

alsetmusic 6y ago
All of this was covered in TFA.

ksec 6y ago

That was when App Store was used to bring in more iPhone customers, and a curated app store that all Apps should be of high quality and before the Internet / Smartphone took over everyday life, i.e Apps were not a necessity. And then in 2015 Apple decided to push for Services Strategy, no longer is App Store mainly used to attract customers, but an extraction of values that lives within the iPhone ecosystem. Sometime post 2015, what is now known as Reader's apps could no longer be without a Sign up button ( Unless you have specific exemption ). An In-App Real Person teaching class would require IAP ( it was scrapped in after the pandemic ) A $1K featureless Apps becomes a monthly or even weekly fraud subscription. And the push to everything subscription. While still not offering upgrade pricing for software.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago

The most noticeable is the 0.1 MB file size. Nowadays, this app would probably be at least 20 MB of bloat.

eyelidlessness 6y ago
Yes, that’s definitely more noticeable than an app charging $1k to do nothing

joncrane 6y ago

Wasn't there also an app where the point was to try to get throw it as high as possible? It supposedly used the accelerometer/altimeter to measure how high you threw the phone to assign points, but really it was just a joke to try to get people to break their phones.

snypher 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Send_Me_To_Heaven https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Send_Me_To_Heaven

donohoe 6y ago

When this happened I made a web page (for fun) that used its logo and you just bookmarked it to Homescreen.

bradfitz 6y ago

If I'm going to give Apple $1,000, I better get a monitor stand out of it at least!

sitkack 6y ago
Go for the wheels, they are self balancing now.

dang 6y ago

Discussed at the time: 'I Am Rich' makes author exactly that, does little else - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=268105 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=268105 - Aug 2008 (13 comments) Others?

rishabhd 6y ago

I remember this, I feel old now.

pmob241 6y ago

Rip a great app