5 ms·

Here's a Reddit thread of other people experiencing the same issue: https://www.reddit.com/r/ios/comments/1su82sc/headspace_app_keeps_getting_installed/ https:/

by _-x-_ 5mo ago

Here's a Reddit thread of other people experiencing the same issue: https://www.reddit.com/r/ios/comments/1su82sc/headspace_app_keeps_getting_installed/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ios/comments/1su82sc/headspace_app_...

Bjartr 5mo ago
Based on that I'd guess either a meditation app company has figured out how to circumvent a lot of controls put in place by Apple, or it's a bug on Apple's side
- _-x-_ 5mo ago
  Yeah, I think the latter is more likely than the former. Perhaps a server side bug that's silently downloading the app on any device that's installed it previously?
  - donkey_brains 5mo ago
    But why this one specific app and no others?
    - _-x-_ 5mo ago
      Right, that's what confuses me the most. I was very surprised to find the reddit thread showing that other people are also having this specific app silently installed on their devices.
      - dd8601fn 5mo ago
        Makes me think something got jacked up adding/removing things from promotional bundles with other apps. It shouldn’t do that, obviously, but headspace does seem like it’s one that bundles “free” with a bunch of health insurance, education, etc. From a debugging perspective, without having Apples information, I kinda want to know if all affected users have some related health or education apps.
    - breppp 5mo ago
      Headspace leaves health data, that's where my first guess would be
    - layer8 5mo ago
      Maybe it’s Apple’s equivalent of Guru Meditation.
    - altairprime 5mo ago
      Maybe Apple typo’d an app id incorrectly for some iOS core app thing in 26.4.2 and the one-character error is this app? I don’t know that anyone’s done a ‘likelihood of collision’ analysis on appstore unique IDs yet. Certainly I could see iOS having a “must be on the device” system set up for apps like Phone and Settings that has a last-ditch of reinstalling it if somehow deleted. Would be especially interesting if some core app that can’t normally be deleted is currently unprotected (back up your device locally first!).
    - wincy 5mo ago
      Maybe it’s like that time Apple thought everyone wanted that awful free U2 album that they automatically added to everyone’s iTunes library. (I know this isn’t actually the case but it’s the funniest explanation)
      - theowaway 5mo ago
        that fucking thing still shows up on my phone from time to time. It's aural herpes
        trinsic2 5mo ago
        I use VLC for my music. Did you know if you uninstall the music app you can't play music though another music app?
        archon810 5mo ago
        Is this really true, I presume on iPhones? As an Android user, this sounds insane to me.
        trinsic2 5mo ago
        On my Iphone. I removed the music app. and was unable to play music in my car with the usb interface. It had no app to play from. VLC must use the music player in some way to play the audio. This is without carplay btw. Im pretty sure carplay is differnt.
        DANmode 5mo ago
        Chrome for iPhone is also only allowed to be reskinned Safari. It’s a locked-down platform - slightly less so if you’re in the EU.
    - mattmaroon 5mo ago
      Can’t be sure it isn’t others. This a very large app, so it may just be the one that gets noticed the most.
    - trinsic2 5mo ago
      Maybe this is not the same thing but I had this happen to me with the ticktock app. It installed by itself. The only difference I can see between this situation and my own is I'm positive I never installed this app because I never used it. It only happened one time though. After I uninstalled it, it never came back.
- a34729t 5mo ago
  Or it is a mandated backdoor, and someone internally objected, and made it easier to exploit than it should be, or leaked how to exploit it?
  - 8cvor6j844qw_d6 5mo ago
    > mandated backdoor Probably one from the repository of backdoors "accidentally" introduced or "never" discovered. The mechanism's there, just needs to be woven with other exploits.
  - jdiff 5mo ago
    Makes no sense for headspace to be using it if that were the case.
    - Barbing 5mo ago
      Conspiracy theory would get too convoluted: Rogue employee employs the backdoor for a major app with hopefully conscientious users who’ll report it online; hopes to force a fix. Or it was a social experiment and some dumb app reinstalls itself every day too but no one’s complained en masse yet! ;)
  - 0123456789ABCDE 5mo ago
    what's the more likely explanation though?
    - Barbing 5mo ago
      bug
- aaron695 5mo ago
  [dead]
- joenot443 5mo ago
  My guess is it's a bug on the App Store side which will actually hurt Headspace in the long run. If this was a casino app I'd feel a bit differently, but I'd be shocked if someone at Headspace did this deliberately. I'm trying to imagine the headspace of a user who deletes an app, only to see it pop back the next morning. Probably not a very relaxing experience :)
cortesoft 5mo ago
This is fascinating. I am very curious to find out what the actual cause of this turns out to be.
- trueno 5mo ago
  same. i get blasted with ads for this app on whatever platform, never installed it myself. the amount of promotions + this = my underdeveloped brain is so ready to assume the worst here. been a while since i used my pitchfork & i'm here for the riot. if it is, in fact, something nefarious at play that would be a pretty crazy 2026 era exploit. but i'm certain it's a bug/artifact of some sort that, for whatever reason, affects this specific app.
  - powersnail 5mo ago
    Maybe the developer was using Headspace as part of the test data and it bled into production? It's hard to imagine what Headspace would like to achieve if this were an exploit executed by them. It's so salient, that it makes no sense to do on purpose. At least some portion of Apple employees and their families are going to be affected by this, and this would escalate to the legal department immediately. My money is on Apple being the buggy one here.
    - trueno 5mo ago
      > My money is on Apple being the buggy one here. Yeah I'm thinking some sort of test artifact bleeding into prod and subject so some nightly process is likely the case.
      - julianozen 5mo ago
        This seems like a good guess. Seems like it was deployed Thursday based on the app reviews
    - concinds 5mo ago
      I wish Apple released incident reports in cases like these. I hate that their secrecy obsession extends so far beyond hardware.
bharat1010 5mo ago
looks like, no where its safea anymore
altairprime 5mo ago
There's an Apple discussions thread now, too: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/256288392 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/256288392 Has 4 'me too'. Do go click that 'me too' button to report the issue if you're seeing it!

by _-x-_ 5mo ago

Bjartr 5mo ago

Based on that I'd guess either a meditation app company has figured out how to circumvent a lot of controls put in place by Apple, or it's a bug on Apple's side

_-x-_ 5mo ago
Yeah, I think the latter is more likely than the former. Perhaps a server side bug that's silently downloading the app on any device that's installed it previously?
- donkey_brains 5mo ago
  But why this one specific app and no others?
  - _-x-_ 5mo ago
    Right, that's what confuses me the most. I was very surprised to find the reddit thread showing that other people are also having this specific app silently installed on their devices.
    - dd8601fn 5mo ago
      Makes me think something got jacked up adding/removing things from promotional bundles with other apps. It shouldn’t do that, obviously, but headspace does seem like it’s one that bundles “free” with a bunch of health insurance, education, etc. From a debugging perspective, without having Apples information, I kinda want to know if all affected users have some related health or education apps.
  - breppp 5mo ago
    Headspace leaves health data, that's where my first guess would be
  - layer8 5mo ago
    Maybe it’s Apple’s equivalent of Guru Meditation.
  - altairprime 5mo ago
    Maybe Apple typo’d an app id incorrectly for some iOS core app thing in 26.4.2 and the one-character error is this app? I don’t know that anyone’s done a ‘likelihood of collision’ analysis on appstore unique IDs yet. Certainly I could see iOS having a “must be on the device” system set up for apps like Phone and Settings that has a last-ditch of reinstalling it if somehow deleted. Would be especially interesting if some core app that can’t normally be deleted is currently unprotected (back up your device locally first!).
  - wincy 5mo ago
    Maybe it’s like that time Apple thought everyone wanted that awful free U2 album that they automatically added to everyone’s iTunes library. (I know this isn’t actually the case but it’s the funniest explanation)
    - theowaway 5mo ago
      that fucking thing still shows up on my phone from time to time. It's aural herpes
      - trinsic2 5mo ago
        I use VLC for my music. Did you know if you uninstall the music app you can't play music though another music app?
        archon810 5mo ago
        Is this really true, I presume on iPhones? As an Android user, this sounds insane to me.
        trinsic2 5mo ago
        On my Iphone. I removed the music app. and was unable to play music in my car with the usb interface. It had no app to play from. VLC must use the music player in some way to play the audio. This is without carplay btw. Im pretty sure carplay is differnt.
        DANmode 5mo ago
        Chrome for iPhone is also only allowed to be reskinned Safari. It’s a locked-down platform - slightly less so if you’re in the EU.
  - mattmaroon 5mo ago
    Can’t be sure it isn’t others. This a very large app, so it may just be the one that gets noticed the most.
  - trinsic2 5mo ago
    Maybe this is not the same thing but I had this happen to me with the ticktock app. It installed by itself. The only difference I can see between this situation and my own is I'm positive I never installed this app because I never used it. It only happened one time though. After I uninstalled it, it never came back.
a34729t 5mo ago
Or it is a mandated backdoor, and someone internally objected, and made it easier to exploit than it should be, or leaked how to exploit it?
- 8cvor6j844qw_d6 5mo ago
  > mandated backdoor Probably one from the repository of backdoors "accidentally" introduced or "never" discovered. The mechanism's there, just needs to be woven with other exploits.
- jdiff 5mo ago
  Makes no sense for headspace to be using it if that were the case.
  - Barbing 5mo ago
    Conspiracy theory would get too convoluted: Rogue employee employs the backdoor for a major app with hopefully conscientious users who’ll report it online; hopes to force a fix. Or it was a social experiment and some dumb app reinstalls itself every day too but no one’s complained en masse yet! ;)
- 0123456789ABCDE 5mo ago
  what's the more likely explanation though?
  - Barbing 5mo ago
    bug
aaron695 5mo ago
[dead]
joenot443 5mo ago
My guess is it's a bug on the App Store side which will actually hurt Headspace in the long run. If this was a casino app I'd feel a bit differently, but I'd be shocked if someone at Headspace did this deliberately. I'm trying to imagine the headspace of a user who deletes an app, only to see it pop back the next morning. Probably not a very relaxing experience :)

cortesoft 5mo ago

This is fascinating. I am very curious to find out what the actual cause of this turns out to be.

trueno 5mo ago
same. i get blasted with ads for this app on whatever platform, never installed it myself. the amount of promotions + this = my underdeveloped brain is so ready to assume the worst here. been a while since i used my pitchfork & i'm here for the riot. if it is, in fact, something nefarious at play that would be a pretty crazy 2026 era exploit. but i'm certain it's a bug/artifact of some sort that, for whatever reason, affects this specific app.
- powersnail 5mo ago
  Maybe the developer was using Headspace as part of the test data and it bled into production? It's hard to imagine what Headspace would like to achieve if this were an exploit executed by them. It's so salient, that it makes no sense to do on purpose. At least some portion of Apple employees and their families are going to be affected by this, and this would escalate to the legal department immediately. My money is on Apple being the buggy one here.
  - trueno 5mo ago
    > My money is on Apple being the buggy one here. Yeah I'm thinking some sort of test artifact bleeding into prod and subject so some nightly process is likely the case.
    - julianozen 5mo ago
      This seems like a good guess. Seems like it was deployed Thursday based on the app reviews
  - concinds 5mo ago
    I wish Apple released incident reports in cases like these. I hate that their secrecy obsession extends so far beyond hardware.

bharat1010 5mo ago

looks like, no where its safea anymore

altairprime 5mo ago

There's an Apple discussions thread now, too: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/256288392 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/256288392 Has 4 'me too'. Do go click that 'me too' button to report the issue if you're seeing it!