People selling cracked versions of our apps? Maybe not bad?

Unity Engine
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1

I am confused.

Google searches are showing some of our apps starting to show up in forum posts as full page advertisements.

I am unsure but it seems like someone has hacked our apps and are selling them or giving them away for jail broken phones.

Example:

Is this really happening?

Anyone else experiencing this?

However, in truth I am not sure this is a bad thing.

Technically these people are creating advertisments for our apps all over the internet. In theory this could be worth much more then the lost app sales. Especially given the limited number of jail broken phones.

Thoughts on this?

2

Oh ya… any suggestions on how to stop the hacking if it is in fact occurring?

Thanks.

3

People are providing cracked versions of your app. Yes, it’s really happening, and happening to tens of thousands of other apps.

I wouldn’t say that they’re create ads for your app, because they’re providing it for free. If someone sees the app, they’ll download it on a site like that one, not go to the app store and buy it.

At the moment there is no 100% hack-free solution, and there probably will never be. Congrats on getting the app out there though.

4

Thanks.

Our initial apps are low investment time for quick revenue as we head toward higher investment more sophisticated apps.

I feel many people will not be able to get the app because their iPhone is not jail broken. A few of these people may still have interest then go to the iTunes store.

All these hack posts appear to be generating more visibility then anything that we could pay for.

However, regardless of the extra visibility… I have to say it does NOT appear to be increasing sales for us… which also implies that perhaps buying advertising would not be that useful either.

Thanks.

5

if they are selling it contact their sales provider on the breach of copyright and illegal actions and request that they at very least terminate the account immediately

6

I would normally agree with you, except in the case of forums like the one you linked too. That forum exists solely to provide cracked smartphone apps. People are going to that site with the intent of finding cracked apps because they have cracked devices.

If they wanted to just look for content to buy then a site like TouchArcade, or an app review site would be more likely the place to be.

7

For what it’s worth, even though there are a lot of app pirates there seems to be relatively little overlap between the pirating crowd and the paying crowd.

The number of iphone owners who know how to (and want to) jailbreak their iphone is fairly small but they pirate a disproportionate amount of software. 10.000 pirated instances of your app obviously don’t mean 10.000 missed sales.

8

This is exactly how I see it as well.

Thanks.