What if he really is mostly innocent? More importantly, Dash app is still great, probably the best for documentation browsing, and now iOS counterpart is restored in some way. Isn't it a great move from his side, considering the circumstances? Shouldn't we celebrate his efforts instead of blaming him?

http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apple-says-1-000-fraudul...

“Switché … can be used to switch between applications or individual windows, ordered by last use. Switché uses CoverFlow to display previews in a visually appealing way. It helps you easily find the window or application you are looking for.”

“DockView … extends Apple’s Dock and shows window previews whenever you hover your mouse over an application or while using CMD+Tab. It helps you visualize the windows you currently have open and easily find the window you are looking for.”

“iGuard … protects your Mac by keeping an eye on the currently logged in users. Even though Mac OS X is already protected from most threats, iGuard adds an extra layer of security and will protect you from hackers that could gain remote access to your Mac.”

While these may not be the most useful programs in the world, there doesn’t seem to be anything illegitimate about them; in particular, they are neither adware nor malware.

It also doesn’t seem fair to label these programs “shovelware”, which is apparently a term that describes “large amounts of public domain, open source and shareware demos and programs … copied onto CD-ROMs and advertised in magazines or sold at computer flea markets”.

Why would Popescu need to escape his dark and terrible past of writing mildly useful programs?

"Gather round, folks, let me tell you a story.

So 5 or 6 years ago, this guy named Bogdan Popescu starts a company called Kapeli and writes a bunch of Shovelware. Puts out a bunch of PR for crap like MoveAddict. http://www.macworld.co.uk/opinion/apple/press-release-mac-os...

http://imgur.com/C2vjkig

All of this is featured on his website, kapeli.com. There in the header...moveAddict, iGuard…and something called ‘Dash’. https://web.archive.org/web/20120409173750/http://kapeli.com...

http://imgur.com/W94bGnl

{edit: Even his old Twitter posts confirm this. https://twitter.com/kapeli/status/24561715939

http://imgur.com/qYSESjl }

Over time, Dash explodes in popularity. It fills a niche and is actually legitimately useful. He “goes legit”, creates a new dev account tied to the same com.kapeli bundle identifier. Suddenly — publically, to those who can’t see his bundle identifiers — it’s the only app he makes! https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qoxumm...

But what to do with all the other shovelware though? Not to worry, it can stay on the other account. Spam some reviews, get some idiots to buy it, easy beer money on the side. Let’s just change the author to “Mihaela” instead.

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:TO_CAd...

https://i.imgur.com/m70tauN.png (There's our good friends, moveAddict and iGuard!)

During a routine Apple account transfer…he gets caught.

All of a sudden he cries foul. There WAS a second account, but it’s not his! It’s a female family member’s. It was some account that he had nothing to do with. He forgot about it! It’s ancient history!

…it just houses literally everything the guy previously created that isn’t Dash. Including apps such as moveAddict and iGuard previously prominently featured on the dude’s website and PR spam. In his name.

Now both Apple and Popescu are in agreement — there are only two accounts with his com.kapeli bundle identifier. Apple says they are both his. He claims he only has one, and a relative has one. So why are his apps on both accounts, his and Mihaelas?

Did he gift the entire source code and ongoing revenue of these apps to this 'family member' as well? What a great guy! Still it sounds like something that might be worth mentioning during this whole mixup, either to his faithful blog readers or Apple. It might have cleared things up rather quickly.

Despite the fact that his whole story falls apart on scrutiny, Apple bend over backwards and will reinstate his account if he admits some wrongdoing. Stubborn dude refuses to budge, posts illegally obtained phone calls…

…and yet people still criticise Apple and believe this guy."

Kapeli wrote the blog post Apple requested and sent it in for review. https://kapeli.com/apple_draft

Apple never got back to him, and instead went to the press with statements that did not mention any of the circumstances, making clear that this was their final statement on the matter. Only then did Kapeli come out with his side of the story and the recorded phone call.

(And I'm really not an Apple apologist; please do checkout my post history if you're so inclined.)

Mind explaining it to us, I don't understand Apple's reasoning here after they said to him to send them the blog post.

If Android had a phone and watch small enough for me I'd love to change over, but their devices are all for giants (and have no fitness features and not enough privacy features).

He got taken off the app store for those activities, doesn't change the fact that a lot of people find it useful.

It's the details that matter. :)

Edit: My point is: you say that it's worthless, and perhaps it is now to him, but not necessarily to others.

What relevance does it have that he is Romanian?

Yeah sure lots of people from my country ( Bulgaria ) are statistically dodgy, but there are also legitimate ones.

Law says : "Person is innocent, until proven guilty."

If I understood your sarcasm correctly, I would assume that according to you statistics describe what people are.

For example. Statistically Sweden right now has the highest amount of rapes in Europe [1]. So it means that most of the Swede are rapist. Hmm.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_in_Sweden

Wow. I never saw anyone on HN get so low. Ever. In more than 9 years. It appears I was right about you.

Afaik. this has not gone to court and both developer and Apple seemed to want to stop talking about it. I believe we should respect this. As we also should respect the nationality and contribution of developers giving away something for free.

Do you ever wonder what the appstore would be like without spam bullshit? How quality software studios could make money instead of some hack like this buying ratings from a third-party on cookie cutter apps?

It's not an issue to mention someone's nationality. Intent matters. That is why you don't say "he's just a black murderer from NYC" or "he's just an arab terrorist".

> Do you have perhaps have any pre-conceived ideas around that particular nationality?

No, it seems that you have. What a lame attempt to spin it around. Funny how you edited your post after people called foul, this is your original post: http://i.imgur.com/HaejrYq.png. This link you posted is amusing: http://blog.siftscience.com/2013/global-e-commerce-fraud. Those American scammers!