I always remember those apps whenever Apple rejects a submission for “App Store quality” because they prefer a different style app page header.

I recently bought an iPad for drawing and I can't help but laugh when people advocate for apple's walled gardens after spending a day in the app store. It's just full of scams and clones and ad riden Spyware. Seriously no one believes that appstore is any better than play store these days right?

A lot of companies prey on uniformed seniors, and the disabled.

A relative works with people with slight Develmental Disabilities, and his clients are targeted by the same apps. It's almost like they have a sucker's list of emails?

I know 501c3's pay for lists of individuals who are easy targets.

That Cars for kids is playing right now on my radio. A few years I researched it, or as much as I could on the internet. All that money, and 1 four bedroom ranch style house in the Sierra Foothills.

And I can't even watch those Humane Society commercials.

I once heard Shriner's hospital has enough money in their war-chest to last another 20 years, even allowing for expensive breakthroughs in medicine.

I sometimes wonder if morals are completely absent in most entities.

This is what happens when a country morphs into Ferenginar. In the U.S. one ought to have very little trust whenever money is involved.

Sorry for your loss. This is straight up predatory behavior and should be illegal. My parents in their late 70’s fell for the same deceptive type of apps sounding like they are from Apple. These devs should be named and shamed.

The entire app store is full of stuff like this. I wanted an app that would do a better job of making flat perspective images than the built in editing features of iOS Photos. Every one of them wanted an in app subscription of $60-$200 a year.

Wanted a leveling app (use your phone to check if something is level). Tons come up, all of them "pay us $60 a year to unlock this app".

Same with dB meters

I don't so much mind that these apps exist but I do mind that the App store for whatever reason, being hacked, gamed, etc, surfaces the scammy stuff to the top.

It’s especially infuriating because it seems like that’s an easy problem to solve. It’s unreasonable to allow subscriptions above $50 a year. And if developers do insist on a higher price, then Apple could audit them.

My Netflix subscription is upwards of $200/year and that's one of the cheaper ones. MotoGP Videopass is something north of $300, Microsoft Gamepass is somewhere in the triple figures.

I don't own an iPhone so none of mine go through Apple but my point is there are any number of legitimate subscriptions well above your arbitrary figure.

Valid point. I think higher price subscriptions could be manually reviewed by Apple to prevent abuse.

Yes. Not a hard to solve problem. Thing is apple profits more from higher subscription and even abuse so their incentive to fix is not there or they drag their feet to gobble up as much as possible. Apple used to be safe, now it’s rampant with scams and fake apps. I removed my credit card from my apple account so I no longer have any surprises.

All subscriptions are reviewed by Apple.

Then somerhing’s broken in their review process. Nefarious pp clones continue to scam people with subscriptions and crazy fees

Seriously, from a company that famously wouldn't allow flashlight apps because they provided the "official" one, this is just silly.

It was a large ruby stone or something I seem to remember.

This is exactly why I tend to profoundly disagree with a lot of people in tech who very strongly advocate that Apple should be less restrictive in what software can be in the App Store and what software can be installed on iPhones.