I chalked it up to Apple being anti-competitive, letting a small guy suffer, a tale of David vs Goliath. Their app store can't be completely full of such apps.

But tonight I just watched my partner attempt to download WhatsApp on the iPad, and this is what it looks like:

https://gist.githubusercontent.com/rjaus/d35358f4286b12a47e3130365d5743aa/raw/a414b08f15f8b3335688e07cb71748a7891903f6/watsapp-appstore.PNG

1st: Ad for TikTok 2nd: Fake App (free) 3rd: Fake App (paid) 4th: Fake App 5th: Fake App 6th: Fake App

Hint. There IS NO WhatsApp for ipad, it's iphone only. This is WhatsApp, owned by Facebook. One of the biggest apps in the world, owned by the largest social media company in the world. And the AppStore is plagued with fake versions of their app.

It's bad for users, it's bad for apple's reputation, it's bad for WhatsApp, it's bad for Facebook. The only winners are these fraud / fake apps (and I guess Apple gets their cut, but surely that's not enough to sanction fraud against their own customers). What is going on?!? How has Apple let this get so bad?