New services bypass Apple DRM to allow pirated iOS app installs without jailbreaking on iPhone, iPad – The Next Web

“If you’re looking to steal apps from developers — lets not kid ourselves about what’s happening here — it is now easier than ever to do so.”

Late last year, the closure of the uber-popular Installous marked the end of a promiscuous era in iOS app piracy.

Now, several new services are on the rise that are filling the gap and offering easy installation of pirated apps, even on devices that have not been jailbroken.Updated with statement from Zeusmos’ developer below.The two that have risen to the forefront are Zeusmos and Kuaiyong. While the former has been around for a few months, it has gained significant steam since the exit of Installous. The latter has appeared seemingly from nowhere over the past couple of weeks.Both of these services are dangerous for app developers because they offer simple, one-tap installs of pirated apps and do not require that devices have been jailbroken in order to do so. This is an enormous problem, as it opens up the arena for their use from the relatively small fraction of users with jailbroken devices — as was the case with Installous — to any unscrupulous users of iPhones and iPads.

If you’re looking to steal apps from developers — lets not kid ourselves about what’s happening here — it is now easier than ever to do so.

via New services bypass Apple DRM to allow pirated iOS app installs without jailbreaking on iPhone, iPad – The Next Web.

iTunes store and gamed reviews

There has been a lot said in the press recently about bad reviews – the NYT recently brought to the attention of Google that one company decormyeyes was actively encouraging bad reviews to gain search engine rankings.

Other sites have been accused of allowing poor reviews which may have a negative effect on their businesses and in fact tripadvisor is being sued over it.

Meanwhile over on the iTunes store they’ve had problems in the past and removed apps from a developer found to be abusing the ratings and review system. Still though it persists.

Does anyone else think it’s suspicious that Union17 manages to review one app ***** (5 star) and NOW TOTALLY RELIABLE! PERFECT!! and writing lots of overly positive (and also in caps with exclamation points) yet at the same time manages to review seven other similar apps all * (1 star) managing to slate them, promote the first app and it’s supposed features int he review and all within a couple of days…
Then there’s Type25 who clearly does work for the developer as any of their apps reviewed are great and any others are poor.

I reckon another developer seems to be trying to game the iTunes store review system which really means you can’t trust the reviews on there until they find a way of preventing developers reviewing on the site.

Social vs Professional

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I don’t want everyone I know to know everyone else that I know.
It’s like when you split up from someone and you suddenly lose a group of friends because they were better friends with your now ex partner.
Imagine this in the online world. It would be a nightmare. You have a spat with someone in the office and all of a sudden everyone in your social network is also affected or vice versa.

I use LinkedIn for my professional network and it works well. I use Facebook, Friendster, Thingbox and AIMPages and any number of others for social networking. Essentially whenever I get an invite I join one and when I see one I want to test or evaluate I join it and invite my friends. What I tend not to do is invite the same group of people to all of them.

There are some people with whom I get on with really well on my social networks that I would never put in my professional network the results would be far too unpredictable. Likewise there are people on my professional network I would never invite onto Facebook.

Anyway back to the point. LinkedIn is considering opening their platform to developers if you believe techcrunch and others, or likely will create an app for facebook. I’m struggling to see the market. I know in an ideal world everything would be interoperable but in the real world I think it would cause more problems than it would solve.

Now of course some software manufacturers have entered the fray. Notably IBM’s Lotus Connections which has a delicious style social bookmarking element, a blogging element – despite most companies looking at ways of reigning in the blogosphere rather than promoting it- and profiles.