Mac App Store: What's in a Name?
The article discusses the peculiar naming conventions of apps in the Mac App Store, particularly focusing on an app named 'App for YouTube ℠'. It highlights the confusion caused by multiple apps with similar names and various suffixes, raising concerns about the App Store's review process. Additionally, the article questions the legitimacy of privacy policies linked to these apps and the overall user experience in the App Store.
- ▪The Mac App Store features multiple apps with similar names, including variations of 'App for YouTube'.
- ▪Many of these apps have questionable privacy policy links, often hosted on generic free sites or using URL shorteners.
- ▪The presence of numerous duplicate app names and symbols raises concerns about the App Store's curation and user experience.
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Previous: Apple 0-dayed Safari on macOS Sequoia and Sonoma Articles index Jeff Johnson (My apps, PayPal.Me, Mastodon) Mac App Store: What’s in a name? May 16 2026 Checking the Mac App Store charts for my own apps, I happened to notice an oddly-named app in the top ten list of Safari extensions in the United States: App for YouTube ℠. Who names their app App? That’s absurdly generic, like naming your child Child. Or Jeff Johnson. Also curious is the service mark symbol in the app name. The App Store allows developers to use a third-party trademark in an app name (see my own Homecoming for Mastodon) as long as the trademark appears at the end of the app name, in a phrase such as “for [trademark]” indicating the purpose of the app.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Lapcatsoftware.
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