Another illegal streaming app made its way to the App Store for a short while — but it only surfaced pirated films for people in certain regions outside the US, including France, Canada, and the Netherlands.
Oops, Apple approved another illegal streaming app
A ‘productivity app’ that streams pirated movies seems to have slipped past Apple’s review process — and it’s far from the first one to do it.
A ‘productivity app’ that streams pirated movies seems to have slipped past Apple’s review process — and it’s far from the first one to do it.
is a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO.
Though Apple has since removed the app, the App Store listing for “Univer Note” presented the app as a productivity platform that can “easily help you record every day’s events and plan your time.” However, for users in certain countries, the app showed a collection of pirated movies, such as Venom: The Last Dance, Joker: Folie à Deux, and Terrifier 3. Options within the app were labeled in French, while films streamed in their original language with French subtitles or dubbing.
Anyone who downloaded the app in an unsupported region, such as the US, would only see a productivity app, a strategy we’ve seen used by other piracy apps to evade detection from reviewers. One recent example was Kimi earlier this year, which posed as a vision-testing tool and was quickly removed after news outlets began reporting about it. Apple didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about the app.
Update, November 4th: Added that Apple removed the app.
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