by Dan Moren
Developer’s App Store account erroneously flagged as malicious
Apple’s automated tools mistakenly flagged developer Charlie Monroe’s account as malicious this week, wreaking havoc with his business:
This is the message macOS shows to all users who try to launch my app. That it will damage their computer with a checkbox to report malware enabled. Average user immediately goes nuts. I fully understand that the entire idea here is that Apple can remotely kill malware and to keep the user on the safe side, but can’t they differentiate between individual cases? Can’t they add revocation reason and in case they just revoke the developer’s certificate for non-malware reasons show something along the lines “This app needs an update from the developer, please contact the developer.”
Even though Apple has remedied the problem and apologized, Monroe brings up some great points here. Given that Apple has all the power in this relationship, the fact that they don’t provide a way to quickly get in touch when something devastating like this happens feels pretty crappy. I’m sure Monroe doesn’t yet have a clear picture of how much this might have damaged his relationship with his users.
Apple might like to disingenuously compare itself to a brick and mortar store, but is there really an analogous case where something like this happens overnight to an independent supplier, with little ability for recourse?