In a long Twitter thread, developer Jeff Johnson warns against applications present on the App Store for Macs that pretend to be free. Indeed, many of them, particularly popular, are actually paying. If their download costs nothing to the user, it is often necessary to take out the wallet to access the functionalities.
As we know, the App Store (just as much as its namesake at Google) contains pitfalls that must be learned to avoid. When the applications presented do not contain malware, it is the scams by the thousands that users must dodge. Thus, it is not uncommon to come across supposedly free applications, but which in reality require subsequent purchase to really work.
According to developer Jeff Johnson, this practice, particularly common on macOS, is far from being an isolated case, since some of the most popular applications on the platform use it. In his Twitter thread on the subject, he mentions in particular GCalendar for Google Calendar, which currently ranks 40th in the US App Store rankings. It is of course possible to download it for free. But, once opened, the app will ask you to pay to get access to the features.
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However, there is no question here of premium features reserved for paying users. It’s good the entire application which is inaccessible if you refuse to pay the amount requested. One might then think that the latter offers a trial period of a few days, but again, the answer is no. However, GCalendar for Google Calendar is rated 4 stars on the App Store, despite many negative reviews.
Jeff Johnson further specifies that the application publisher offers eight others on the platform, operating in exactly the same way. “The problem is that the App Store doesn’t protect consumers from losing a lot of money to blatant scams. If Apple is now officially approving greed scams in the App Store, that’s even worse! »writes the developer.
