Molinker, cometh the cloner
Thursday, December 3, 2009 at 10:00AM | Glyn Evans Following on from the US AppStore ratings and review scam, where it is alleged that developer Molinker may be involved (intentionally or unintentionally) in false reviews and ratings of their apps to bump up their status and sales, comes fresh allegations that this developer may be copying other photo apps in the AppStore.
The recently released app NightCam Pro which sparked of this allegation by having over 40 five star reviews with in the first 2 days of its release, has an uncanny resemblance to Chase Jarvis's 'Best Camera". Now this app is not a direct rip-off of 'Best Camera', as it has some extra features which 'Best Camera' doesn't have, and which are very nice and work very well, but the rest of the app is so similar they could have been twins separated at birth.
Like 'Best Camera', NightCam Pro has a series of predefined effects, which can be layered and mixed together to create some nice looking photos, and like 'Best Camera' these effects are selected by sliding the effects bar that is positions across the bottom of the app screen, as the 2 side-by-side photos below show.
Above: NightCam Pro on the left and Best Camera on the right.
Above: Photo No.1, Best Camera or NightCam Pro?
Above: Photo No.2, Best Camera or NightCam Pro?Now NightCam Pro is not the only photo app from Molinker that resembles someone else's app, just take a look at CameraPlus which has features almost identical to those of Camera Genius, and ColorMagic which has similarities to ColorSplash.
What I find really disappointing about this app developer, is they are clearly talented, after all their apps look and feel good, but they are generating negative feedback like this by appearing to be involved in the AppStore scam, and copying/cloning existing apps.
If there are any other app developers out there considering bumping up their AppStore ratings by using unscrupulous tactics, then DON'T do it. Likewise if you are developing an app that produces similar, but hopefully better results than an exiting one, then be different, and DON'T copy the UI of others, or you will run the risk of being classed as a copycat, and we don't like copycats.
If you are a developer who has had your UI copied or your ratings scammed, then drop me an email, as I'd like to here about it.
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Reader Comments (7)
I think Photo No.2 is the better one...
I have Best Camera, but I don't use it so much, the results are just not good enough.
Great post.In your future reviews of new apps, could you please mention whether there are similar apps and the difference. I think that will helpful and we also can comment on the ones we have.
- A RSS subscriber .
Upon initial use it is obvious that the UI is indeed a blatant rip-off of Best Camera. The NightCam Pro filters are OK, but nothing that I didn't already have with other apps and NightCam Pro lacks a major feature that I particularly enjoy about Best Camera, which is the ability to reorder your filters while you are working on your images to alter their effect on your image. It's sharing features are minimal compared to Best Camera as well. NightCam Pro feels to me like someone took a few feature sets from a couple different existing apps and then stirred them all together to make NightCam Pro. The UI is a bigtime clone of Best Camera, but the function of NightCam Pro doesn't even come close. It's nothing innovative ... Just more of the same copycat camera apps offering the same recycled list of features.
Jason, thanks for the feedback, and I'm glad yo agree this is a copycat app.
I just bought NightCam Pro and find it very high performance with excellent results! Unfortunately, I have a problem with BestCamera ... many times the application quits unexpectedly.
bye from Italy
Saves @ 600x800 !!! It's a crapper !!!
They are BOTH copycats of the Macintosh dock.