New ask Hacker News story: Ask HN: How do apps get into Apple App Store pretending something they are not?

Ask HN: How do apps get into Apple App Store pretending something they are not?
2 by cosmorocket | 0 comments on Hacker News.
Being a bit into the adult industry, I sometimes see some kind of "creative" ways developers/publishers use to push their adult-oriented apps and services into Apple app store for iOS, and this is something that seems to happen quite regularly. For example, just today I saw a commercial on YouTube of an app, which clearly said "1 on 1 chat, have fun, let's do it together, blah blah blah". The ad shows some nice lady in a video chat smiling and showing her boobs blurred. Ok, I click a link to see how this app looks in the app store, because I understand it cannot be the same there, and 99% it pretends to be something else than an adult-oriented video chat. So, I click the link "Install" and get to the app store. There, it makes its best to pretend as a kind of a book reader with recommendations and ability to share your "interests" with your new "friends" over the app. Screenshots show a bookshelf, then some screenshots looking like a social network, nothing you could suspect in doing anything "seditious". The description is also completely unrelated to anything chat-related, videos, 1-on-1 having fun with ladies and so on. I am doing the next step and installing the app to see if it really looks as a book reader on the start or not. When I install and open it, right from the start it shows a gallery with ladies I can "contact" and "have fun" if I topup my account and pay by minute. Now, my question - how does it happen this way when developers create some clearly fake app page in app store, then get reviewed successfully with their shady app and finally get published in the app store? As far as I understand, reviewers have to install the app and see how it actually works and what it really does. Why does it happen this way? Do developers send some nice-looking app to the review then somehow replace it with their actual app in the app store? Thanks for your input!

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