Apple has a huge app market explored with the iPhone (and subsequently other iOS devices). With over 500k apps live on the App Store and 200 million iOS devices using them, there ought to be good security measures in place by Apple, right? Specially given that many of these would have a credit card associated with their account? Well as it seems Apple has a new security feature for your App Store account. They send a warning email if they suspect the account is compromised.
I have been using an iPad 2 for a while and I just borrowed my neighbors iPhone 4 for a few weeks, loaded iOS 5 on it and began setting up my apps (I am using an ID synced with iCloud). One new app that I purchased was Tweet bot and as soon as I am done with installing the app, my inbox receives an email form Apple. Here is what it reads:
Your Apple ID, <email id> was just used to purchase Tweetbot — A Twitter Client with Personality from the App Store on a computer or device that had not previously been associated with that Apple ID.If you made this purchase, you can disregard this email. It was only sent to alert you in case you did not make the purchase yourself.
I have been juggling quite a few iOS devices (and my App Store account is shared by family members at times) for the past few years, including the iPod touch and iPad 1, however I never before received an email like this from Apple. That makes me believe that this is a recent feature. The email advises you to change your password, but doesn’t readily offer help to recover the loss by unauthorized purchases. Nevertheless, a handy security notification in our opinion.
Steve Jobs might have had a doubt about Apple’s ability to moderate and make a 3rd party apps ecosystem, but they certainly have done well.