Spotify free

We know pirated apps on Apple iPhones are minority stuff. But they exist. The curious thing is that now it has been discovered that they arrive through the official channels of the Cupertino company itself. Or so Reuters has learned, echoing the news that pirate developers have used company certificates or channels to distribute internal applications or Apple's test program to spread this kind of applications.

We are talking about pirated applications such as the version of Spotify that allows you to enjoy all the music without ads without paying a penny. Or hacks or modifications of games like Pokémon GO with access to the contents of the store completely free of charge. Or versions of Minecraft where you have to pay absolutely nothing to play. That is, scams that incur losses for developers. And that they completely violate the terms of use of the Apple App Store. All this taking advantage of its own distribution channels for companies.

This scandal does not come alone. In fact, it appears after learning that these distribution channels have also been used to spread applications with pornographic content or betting servicesAnd it is that it is a kind of permissive master key that bypasses the controls that the paternalistic Apple usually applies to the rest of the services and applications of the App Store.

The business, according to TechCrunch, is in simple subscriptions that these creators introduce into the applications. They affirm that with a bill of about 13 dollars (about 12 euros) per year, users can have access to these modified versions of some applications. Enough to cover the 300 dollars (about 266 euros) that the company certificate accreditations that Apple offers to distribute these applications cost. With these certificates, iPhones recognize applications as safe, from original sources and available for installation.

According to Engadged, Apple has gone to work to ban these pirate developers from their enterprise certificate service .The problem is that they only have to buy a new license to carry on with their particular business. They also claim to work on a two-factor authentication system to prevent hackers from using developer accounts, although it remains to be seen if this works.

From Reuters they do not talk about the money figures that these developers (TutuApp, Panda Helper and AppValley) have been defrauding Apple and the creators of the original applications. But between the three of them they have more than 600,000 followers on the social network Twitter. So it seems that the total amount would not be low.

The App Store, the most profitable store

If this app store can boast of something, it is, on the one hand, the paternalism and security it offers its users. Few alerts from harmful applications or loaded with malware have popped up. Although for this the restrictions are high, and even moralistic with some genres of applications.

Another of its virtues is profitability Apple always stands out above Google in terms of profits. iPhone users usually have the first launches of applications and games, both because it is a platform with fewer mobile phones and variables, and because users are more willing to pay for content. Money that, apparently, both developers and Apple itself would be failing to earn with practices such as those discovered by Reuters.