Two Classics, One Is A Fake, Can You Guess Which One?
BY Tyler Tschida on applications classics copy developers ebooks
They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but should a developer be flattered when the imitating application is an exact replica?
Classics, developed by Andrew Kaz and Phill Ryu, has had the luxury of being a quality application featured in a prime time television commercial. It has sold over 100,000 copies and continues to do great business.
Classics, by Ubiklabs, has had the luxury of being a nearly exact replica of a quality application featured in a prime time television commercial. It has become a fairly common practice for developers to use a popular competitor’s title in their description or even in their applications title to try to gain exposure from searches. It seems that Ubiklabs has taken this idea and gone too far, way too far.
Ars Technica decided to compare the two applications from their titles down to file names. They used Classics: Jane Austen as their example because it is a collection of multiple books but it isn’t Ubiklabs only offending application. All of their eBook applications share at least some of the same qualities of the original Classics.
Ubiklabs used the exact same wood bookshelf, text, pages, sounds and red signature bookmark. They even used the same application description. Ars Technica stripped the bookshelf of the books to compare the two wood backgrounds and they appear exactly the same. Ars was able to confirm that those images were created specifically by Classics David Lanham.
Ubiklabs version isn’t even a quality re-creation. The author bio of Jane Austen itself was taken from a Wikipedia entry about the author. To add to the heaping pile of offenses, the title of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is misspelled in Ubiklab’s application.
The developers of the original Classics are fully aware of the situation:
“The guy stole our art, our lines, even our name, and I think it’s obvious he’s trying to piggy back on our success, riding on top of our stolen assets,” Phill Ryu told Ars. “We feel violated, and we’re a little worried this will continue happening as more apps flood the store.”
No one has mentioned any lawsuits or further action at this time.
How did Apple’s review process miss this obvious copy? It’s not like Apple hasn’t seen the application before, and it’s not as if Apple has a problem denying perfectly good applications. This is usually where the beating the dead horse part comes in but I have used that before. How about, do something about it Apple, or your customers are going to think you are a joke. Is that better?
