Also... I just realized... in the same way the article OP mentioned they were ahead of everyone else wrt features/implementation etc, I wonder if the scammers are ahead of the game in terms of preternaturally staying under the App/Play Store radars? Like, specifically, exactly what might they be doing, I wonder?
These folks are experts. They probably know exactly what terminology to use, which screens to optimize, etc. Just because they are scammers, doesn't mean they are stupid.
They could probably actually make legit money, giving classes on the Apple App Store process.
And yeah, wow, the scammers could give classes... with the only irony that the once out of the "game", as it were, an individual ex-player's info will literally become outdated within 30 seconds :/ - or at least that's the impression I get.
Yeah, the Apple app provisioning system changes so much, and so quickly, that you blink; you miss it.
However, I have yet to write an app that has been highly successful, so being copied has not been a problem for me.
Seeing the behavior of these scammers, I have no doubt that they would gleefully take my source, tweak the storyboard, and release a clone. They don’t seem to have any sense of shame, at all. Some of these shops have stables of hundreds of apps; each, a minor tweak of other apps in their roster.
It is annoying that Apple gives me a hard time for some small cosmetic detail on my app, while rubberstamping these tsunamis of pure, shameless garbage.
I do get annoyed by “looks like” scams. A couple of years ago, my wife accidentally purchased a “looks like” app that was basically a screengrab of another app (and was approved on the App Store!).
She was able to get the subscription (!) canceled, but it was a pain. Apple also left the junk app on the store.
She was also so unnerved by the situation, that she never got the original app, so it shows that these spam/scam apps can cause a lot of collateral damage.
Getting a refund did not fix the problem.