iPhone App Piracy already emerging as a problem
It’s starting already…Piracy. It’s a major problem with PC apps, and now it’s raising its ugly head in the iPhone app arena. Surprised? There honestly should be no surprise in this development.
From YouTube, Rapidshare to Google, and newsgroups, commonly a haven for pirated media of all kinds for years. There are more and more ways to download pirated iPhone Applications and more websites to learn how to do it.
Who is responsible for going after the million plus sites that come up in Google’s Index and host these cracked applications? or the sites that detail how to crack apps and get them running? Will developers have to poilce their apps and have to personally protect their own applications? If so, then Apple is basically asking every developer to do what Apple themselves should be doing. With Apple pulling in so much revenue from the App Store its doubtful they will put it in the developer’s hands.
So it’s a fair question to ask: what is Apple going to do about piracy? The App Store has over 3000 applications already and the longer they take to respond. . .the worse the issue will become, and the harder it will be to address and deal with. It will be interesting to see how Apple deals with this growing issue.
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Why are people pirating iPhone apps? It’s certainly not because of the high prices – many apps are very reasonably priced… for many, it’s because there are NO DEMO VERSIONS of any apps available in the iTMS! There are NO REFUNDS for apps sold in the iTMS – even if the damn things don’t work as advertised. There are many examples of applications there that had been ‘reviewed and approved’ but don’t work (auctionsnap is a good example). So, people are turning to the alternative of getting a cracked version to try the apps to make sure they are functional (and fun!) before committing to a purchase. Until Apple can offer some refund mechanism or allow developers to produce demos of their apps, piracy will continue (and probably will for other reasons even if demos are offered – I’m a realist). IMHO, that is.
There ARE demo versions of many apps in the Itunes Apps Store and there have been for quite some time. Not all of the apps but there are MANY demo verisons of apps available they usually have the same name as the real app but have “free” or “lite” attached to the name. People are pirating for the same reason as always, don’t want to spend money if they don’t have to. Stealing without penalty.