12-02-2009, 08:44 PM

One week after it hit the App Store, i found links to illegal copies of my first iPhone App.

I have no experience with this kind of thing.
I know i can't prevent it anymore (now that it's circulating), but maybe someone knows how to make it more difficult for them next time? I have another project in the works that I've invested over 10 months hard work, and I rather not have this happen again, if there is a way to prevent it.

I did ask the host to remove the links from his site, but it's probably on 10 other sites by now. Ideas?

I'm a bit amazed they'd bother to pirate a $.99 cent app, but I guess that's the world we live in

12-02-2009, 09:08 PM

Check if the iPhone SDK provides a way of checking with Apple if a particular Apple ID (which you should have access to in the application) has purchased your application..

Phoning home in your app would be useless since you don't have a list of people who've purchase your app so I think the onus is on Apple to provide this feature if it isn't already available..

Regards

12-02-2009, 10:01 PM

Hey
I apologise for not having anything particularly constructive, as such, to say, but - is this pirating for jailbroken phones? (Don't worry - I have no plans to A: jailbrake, or B: pirate).
What was the name of the app? Can't help you with advice, so might have to help you out by buying a copy!
Peace

12-02-2009, 10:17 PM

Originally Posted by ajdb9

Hey
I apologise for not having anything particularly constructive, as such, to say, but - is this pirating for jailbroken phones? (Don't worry - I have no plans to A: jailbrake, or B: pirate).
What was the name of the app? Can't help you with advice, so might have to help you out by buying a copy!
Peace

SunGPS: iTunes Store

Haven't tested the pirated download - I don't use jailbreak

12-02-2009, 10:26 PM

Originally Posted by Raz0rEdge

Check if the iPhone SDK provides a way of checking with Apple if a particular Apple ID (which you should have access to in the application) has purchased your application..

Phoning home in your app would be useless since you don't have a list of people who've purchase your app so I think the onus is on Apple to provide this feature if it isn't already available..

Regards

Off-by-One Mobile: In App Purchase and the state of iPhone piracy

I will not go into details here. All the information can be easily found online, and I don’t want to get in the sights of DMCA zealots.

iPhone applications are encrypted and signed. However, on jailbroken phones, crackers can easily dump the unencrypted data from memory while the application is running. A small modification of the Info.plist file of the bundle will then allow unencrypted applications to run on a jailbroken iPhone.

Several automated scripts that do the whole cracking process have been released in the past.

Custom anti-piracy protections

Apple offers no official methods for developers to detect pirated applications. However, several ways to detect the artifacts of the cracking process have been documented (link, link ). The simplest one is to detect if the Info.plist has been modified as indicated in the previous section. Applications can act on the detection of piracy by reverting to a lite version or stop working altogether.

to late

12-03-2009, 08:52 AM

That is a shame and I know this is a big discussion on the iPhone development forums I've visited..each developer trying to come up with some ingenious way to protect their hard work..

It was probably short-sighted of Apple to not imagine that someone would find a way of breaking open the iPhone OS to look at what's happening underneath the surface and pirate apps, but hopefully now that jailbreaking is a known thing, they will figure something out to protect the developers..

Regards

12-03-2009, 04:28 PM

Indeed. I hope upcoming devices and the next iPhone OS might help fighting piracy.

12-03-2009, 05:27 PM

Somehow I don't think this would be as much of a problem if the App Store had a built in trial period that would let you fiddle with paid apps for a short while before you had to purchase it. I know a lot of people don't want to pay for an app that may or may not do what they're looking for. A dollar here and a dollar there eventually adds up to serious money.

12-03-2009, 05:35 PM

Originally Posted by Kash

Somehow I don't think this would be as much of a problem if the App Store had a built in trial period that would let you fiddle with paid apps for a short while before you had to purchase it. I know a lot of people don't want to pay for an app that may or may not do what they're looking for. A dollar here and a dollar there eventually adds up to serious money.

Yeah, I sometimes look for a certain kind of application and find 10 of them from different developers. Buying 10 $2 applications just to find the one I find easiest to use is kinda silly. Just like with the normal mac applications, there should be a trial period to get the feel of the application.

12-03-2009, 07:24 PM

Until recently Apple didn't suppose in-app purchases, so there was no way to release a "feeler" version of the app and support upgrading to a full version. The way around this was the use of the lite version of apps..but that's mainly for games as far as I could see..

With the new addition one, perhaps people will start using it and allow people to try things out before purchasing it..

Regards

12-03-2009, 07:56 PM

What's the app? What does it do? What's it called? And why pirate it if it is only $0.99?

12-04-2009, 12:30 AM

Originally Posted by VIC20

SunGPS: iTunes Store

Haven't tested the pirated download - I don't use jailbreak

It is SunGPS, above
One of the top 20 weather apps

12-19-2009, 01:22 PM

The Pirates released a new Crack-App last week

No more copy protection at all! The "isApplicationGenuine" check is cracked.

12-19-2009, 04:10 PM

I wouldn't worry about it mate. Logically speaking, the people who crack apps or pirate apps, would never have been a paying customer in the first place. So it's not like you're losing anything technically speaking.

You'll still make the same exact amount of money you would have, regardless. I hope you understand my point. Pirating will always exist. I wouldn't waste time worrying about it. And even if Apple did wrangle up some ingenious anti piracy technique, my point still stands. Those people who were pirating, but whom are no longer capable, STILL aren't going to purchase an app they wanted to pirate in the first place.

Maybe there is a small percentage who MIGHT, but not enough of a percentage to make a significant difference IMHO.

And before anybody decides to give me a speech about morals and principle's etc.. save it. You'd be preaching to the choir. I'm not arguing about what is ethical. We all know what ethics are. Some just choose to ignore them, which is my point and not worth trying to get into a debate about. Alright ya tree huggin' hippies ?

Doug

12-22-2009, 12:28 PM

If there would be no piracy people would buy the Apps. They might install a lot of Apps just because they are "free" - but they bought an iPhone and want Apps (otherwise they would not install pirated Apps) so they would buy if they had no other choice. They ARE hurting sales, maybe not my sales but the sales of those Apps they really like.