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Ripping off iPhone apps (updated)

Ars Technica posted a story about a new scourge plaguing the App Store: 100% complete app ripoffs. An app called Classics: Jane Austen (sorry, no link love) pictured at right, is a complete rip off of an excellent iPhone book reader called Classics ($3), pictured on the left.
Written by Jason D. O'Grady, Contributor

Ars Technica posted a story about a new scourge plaguing the App Store: 100% complete app ripoffs. An app called Classics: Jane Austen (sorry, no link love) pictured at right, is a complete rip off of an excellent iPhone book reader called Classics ($3), pictured on the left.

It appears that shady developer Diego Dominguez Ferrera of Ubiklabs has completely and unapologetically stole several aspects of the successful Classics app including the background pattern which is a pixel exact copy of the wooden background found in the original app.

And he doesn't stop there, Ferrera also stole the page flip sounds and the app's feature list from Classics. For good measure he also lifted the bio snippet of Jane Austen word-for-word from the Wikipedia entry.

Shameful.

Apple really needs to add a "report this app" button to all apps in the App Store for cases like this.

Update: Ferrera has added a note to the top of his App Store description that reads "Coming soon new graphical art." Gee, ya think?

Image: Ars Technica

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