For Apple, Pressure Builds Over App Store Fraud

Stephane Richard, the outspoken CEO of French telecom Orange, says Apple has become a much easier company to work with lately.

The prospect of a sudden halt in growth, after earnings leapt 23 per cent in the year to September 2012, weighed heavily on Apple’s shares. They sank to a fresh 12-month low, falling 5.5 per cent to $402.80, after briefly dipping below $400 for the first time since 2011, reports The FT.

"Apple is not a hardware company," CEO Tim Cook just said at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference in San Francisco.

AppGratis, the app-discovery app that Apple removed last week for closely mimicking the official App Store, started an online petition yesterday that encourages users to ask Apple to let it return. Apple said it removed AppGratis for violating a clause in the iOS developer guidelines that prohibits apps from mimicking the official App Store.

Apple pulled an app called AppGratis from the App Store last week. Usually, that wouldn't be a big deal. Apple removes apps from the store all the time.

More than four years after Apple launched its iPhone App Store, mobile app stores represent some of the world's fastest growing software markets and create must-build opportunities for many software companies.

More than four years after Apple launched its iPhone App Store, mobile app stores represent some of the world's fastest growing software markets and create must-build opportunities for many software companies.

For all the attention mobile apps receive in the press, their actual payout appears relatively modest.