Apple has billed theApp Storeas the safest way for iOS users to get apps on their devices. It’s such an important aspect of the business that it has essentially gone to war in an effort to keep things exactly the way they are. That, of course, includes its App Store fee, which can net the company upwards of 30% per in-store transaction. But, even as outside sources try to pressure some changes, Apple’s ready to beat the safety drum again.
Today, Applepublished a press releaseshowcasing a new fraud analysis of the App Store that looked over the digital storefront’s efforts over the course of 2021. According to the data, the App Store prevented a whopping total 1.6 million untrustworthy or otherwise risky apps from defrauding users through the course of last year.
Going further, Apple says the research showed the App Store stopped “nearly 1.5 billion in fraudulent transactions” over the same stretch of time.
From today’s announcement:
We sawApple showcasethe same sort of numbers last year, when the company said the App Store stopped more than $1.5 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions through 2020. So the gigantic number here isn’t moving all that much. However, this new research shows Apple rejected 34,000 apps for what it describes as having “hidden features,” while 157,000 were rejected or being described as a copycat app or spam.
Account fraud is a big deal for developers, too:
When developer accounts are used for fraudulent purposes in a deceitful or especially egregious fashion, the offending developer’s Apple Developer Program account is terminated. While these people or entities deploy elaborate techniques to obscure their actions, Apple monitors to ensure related accounts are terminated quickly. As a result of these efforts, Apple terminated over 802,000 developer accounts in 2021. An additional 153,000 developer enrollments were rejected over fraud concerns, preventing these bad actors from submitting an app to the store.
The press release digs a bit deeper:
