An iOS app flaw letting developers create apps that must be given a minimum of three star reviews before opening has been discovered by a noted scam buster.
Kosta Eleftheriou, developer of the popular Apple Watch keyboard FlickType, brought attention to the practice in a video he shared on Twitter.
As soon as the app is opened, the review pop-up is presented with the 'Not Now' button - usually used to dismiss the request for a review - non-functional.
Trying to select either one or two stars has no effect either. It's only when a minimum of three stars are selected the user is given the opportunity to submit the review, with the 'Cancel' function non-functional.
Earlier this month Apple said the App Store stopped more than US$1.5 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions in 2020. The company also said it rejected over a million 'problematic' apps and deactivated 244 million customer accounts due to fraudulent and abusive activity.
Eleftheriou, who previously identified a children's platform game called Jungle Runner 2K21 that became an online casino, has been critical of the App Store for not identifying scams.
The UPNP Extreme app, which has now been removed from the store, came from a developer with 15 million downloads, said Kosta.
The practice contravenes Apple's advice to developers which states "avoid showing a request for a review immediately when a user launches your app, even if it is not the first time that it launches".
Eleftheriou filed a lawsuit against the tech giants in March this year, alleging the company exploits its monopoly "to make billions of dollars in profits at the expense of small application developers and consumers", reported The Verge.
