Would you trust perfect five-star ratings left on the Apple App Store by thousands of users with bizarre names like “Keyston Tiddemansskbjv” or “Alve Gillicuddybqjgw”? How do you qualify a free-to-download app that could cost you US$520 a year if you forget to cancel your weekly subscription?
Posted at 8:00 a.m.
These disturbing facts are about the hit Montreal app AmMe, founded in 2014 then launched in 2015 by ex-dragon Martin-Luc Archambault. AmMe offers shared streaming of music from Spotify, YouTube or personal library to multiple phones that have downloaded the app.
AMPME APP SCREEN CAPTURE
AmMe allows, since 2015, the shared distribution of musical pieces from Spotify, YouTube or his personal library on several phones that have downloaded the application.
It is an American developer well known for his criticism of the virtual store of Apple, Kosta Eleftheriou, who published on January 10 a series of messages on Twitter denouncing several practices ofAmMe.
33.5 million downloads
First, the developer reviewed thousands of perfect ratings considered suspicious, which gave five stars to AmMe since its launch and allowed it to be at the top of music apps for several years. According to the Apptopia site, quoted by online media TechCrunch, it has been installed 33.5 million times since its launch.
Much of this success, Mr. Eleftheriou explains in several tweets, is based on blatantly false, similarly worded positive reviews by so-called users with sometimes goofy names. He estimates their number at around 10,000. AmMe to post an overall rating of 4.3 stars.
IMAGE FROM TWITTER
An anthology of positive reviews collected by the application AmMe on the App Store, featured in tweets from Kosta Eleftheriou, an American developer critical of Apple’s virtual store.
“Your app becomes the 135and highest paying on the App Store, generating more than 13 million since 2018”, summarizes Mr. Eleftheriou. The $13 million revenue estimate comes from AppFigures. Apptopia, another specialized site cited by TechCrunch, has instead established it at 16 million US.
Two days after the publication of his series of tweets, Mr. Eleftheriou also noted that there was obviously a “manual cleaning” in the reviews published on the App Store. From 54,080 at the time of its release, we have increased to 50,693.
Price reduced by half
Until the beginning of the week, AmMe offered a three-day free trial in the US, then an auto-renewing subscription for US$9.99 per week, or “$520 per year for a self-renewing subscription, easy to sign up, but way harder to cancel”, denounces the developer.
It should be noted that there is no paid subscription formula for users in Quebec, we remind you at AmpMe. ” AmMe has always been free for Quebec users,” reads a statement sent to The Press.
The day after the release, AmpMe released a new price schedule for the US, halving the weekly subscription, which is now US$4.99.
In the written statement sent to The Press Last Friday signed by “the AmpMe team”, it is assured that the fact of indicating that American users currently pay $520 per year “does not reflect reality at all”.
“That is obviously false. For example, in 2021, the average user who subscribed and took advantage of our free trial period paid an average of $17 in total. Considering only paid users, the average annual subscription revenue is around $75. »
The pricing is said to be “transparent” and the cancellation and unsubscription procedures “are clear and easy to perform according to the procedure put in place by Apple for all applications on the App Store”. As in many cases, the unsubscription is not done in the application, but in a submenu of the settings of mobile devices.
Second controversy
As for the accusations of having bought false good notes, we are doing an act of contrition. “Like most start-ups, we have hired external independent consultants to help with marketing and app store optimization. Greater supervision of their activities is possibly necessary and we are currently working on it. »
PHOTO OLIVIER JEAN, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Martin-Luc Archambault, Montreal entrepreneur who became known to the general public thanks to the show In the eye of the dragon from 2015 to 2018, founded Wajam in 2009, then AmpMe in 2014.
This is not the first time that an application designed by Martin-Luc Archambault has been in turmoil. In 2018, The Press, under the pen of journalist Isabelle Hachey, revealed that a software presented as a “successful social search engine”, Wajam, was in fact storing the raw data of millions of users without their consent. By multiplying installations and triggering unwanted advertising displays, this software was considered “potentially unwanted software”, noted an investigation report by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada filed in 2017.
Wajam was founded in 2009 by Mr. Archambault before all of its assets were sold in 2017 to a Hong Kong company.
It was not possible to reach Mr. Archambault.