Ripping off iPhone apps (updated)

Ars Technica posted a story about a new scourge plaguing the App Store: 100% complete app ripoffs. An app called Classics: Jane Austen pictured at right, is a complete rip off of an excellent iPhone book reader called Classics ($3), pictured on the left. ZDNet reports.

It appears that shady developer Diego Dominguez Ferrera of Ubiklabs has completely and unapologetically stole several aspects of the successful Classics app including the background pattern which is a pixel exact copy of the wooden background found in the original app.

And he doesn’t stop there, Ferrera also stole the page flip sounds and the app’s feature list from Classics. For good measure he also lifted the bio snippet of Jane Austen word-for-word from the Wikipedia entry.

Shameful.

Apple really needs to add a “report this app” button to all apps in the App Store for cases like this.

Read full articles: ZDNet and ars technica

Related: - Annoy-A-Teen Developer Considers Charges Over Pirated iPhone App

emily | 9:17 PM | Cell Phone Apps Related Articles |
The Permanent Link to this page is: http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/2009/02/022775.htm

Tweet