in-app purchase

Tuesday's top tech stories are out to disrupt your world:

Oh Amazon, what don't you do? Well cross off game development, as it just launched its own studio to make Facebook games and compete with Zynga. It also joined the textbook rental service to face off with eBay's Half.com and BookRenter.

YouTube will no longer be a pre-loaded default app on Apple devices. Apple is dropping the YouTube app for iOS 6, and Google will create a separate app you can download. It's all part of Apple's mission to distance itself from Google.

If … Read more

Windows Phone developers who want to add in-app purchases to their products can do so, but only on Windows Phone 8.

Guidelines recently posted by Microsoft confirmed that developers "can only add in-app products to Windows Phone 8 apps." This means that users and developers alike using Windows Phone 7.8 will probably be out of luck.

App makers who want to take advantage of the new feature are advised to explain the "fundamentals" of the in-app product, such as alias, price, type, and languages. They also need to provide Microsoft with a name and image … Read more

The creator of an exploit that let users purchase digital goods inside of iOS apps without actually paying for them said today that Apple's fix puts the hack out of business.

"Currently we have no way to bypass [the] updated APIs," creator Alexei Borodin wrote in a post on his development blog. "It's a good news for everyone, we have updated security in iOS, developers have their air-money."

Borodin says that the exploit, which requires the use of third-party servers and specially-installed security certificates, will continue to be up and running until Apple releases … Read more

The exploit that allowed users to purchase digital goods inside iOS apps without actually paying has jumped platforms and now works on Apple's Mac platform.

The Next Web notes that programmer Alexei Borodin, who created the iOS in-app purchase exploit, now has a similar solution for apps purchased in Apple's Mac App Store. Like the exploit for iOS, this too requires that users install special security certificates on their machines, though it also requires the installation of an extra helper program.

Earlier today Apple said it had a fix coming in the next version of iOS, due out … Read more

Apple is not too pleased with Russian hacker Alexey V. Borodin, and a hack he developed that allows iDevice owners to install in-app goods without paying for them.

According to The Next Web, Apple over the weekend blocked the IP addresses of the server Borodin used to facilitate the hack. In addition, the company issued a takedown request to his server's hosting provider. Apple even requested that the video Borodin posted showing his technique in action be removed from YouTube due to a copyright violation.

Borodin last week surfaced with an exploit that re-routes in-app purchase requests away from Apple or a developer's secured server … Read more

Apple says it's investigating an exploit that currently allows users to purchase digital goods inside of iOS apps without actually paying for them.

"The security of the App Store is incredibly important to us, and the developer community," Apple spokesperson Natalie Harrison told CNET in a prepared statement. "We take reports of fraudulent activity very seriously and we are investigating."

The company did not provide any estimate of when action would be taken. Russian technology blog i-ekb.ru, which first reported on the exploit earlier today, noted that the hosting company that currently serves the … Read more

A new exploit aimed at iOS devices enables users to gain free access to paid content within applications, thereby circumventing built-in security measures.

The hack, which was detailed by a Russian programmer and picked up by 9to5mac this morning (via i-ekb.ru), uses a proxy system to send purchase requests to third-party servers where they are validated and sent back to the application as if the transaction had gone through. However before that happens, users need to install special security certificates on their device, as well as be on a Wi-Fi network.

The individual behind the effort has already created … Read more

Earlier this week, I wrote about how Facebook is in danger from a new kind of social network, one that's born mobile and figures out how to make money on that mobile usage.

I figured, in response to many questions and comments, it was only fair to get a little wonky for a moment about who actually is making money on mobile, or how a site or startup might try a mix of potentially successful strategies in the future. Here are my guesses.

First, the only apps and companies making significant money on mobile right now are making most … Read more

Update at 5 p.m. PT: EA now says that the message to users was an "error" and that the game will continue to be playable. See the full story on that here. Original story follows:

Owners of EA's Rock Band app for iOS are discovering a nasty surprise today: the game they bought has just weeks to live.

Reported on by The Guardian and first spotted by Rockbandaide, the software -- which is still for sale at $4.99 -- today began serving up a pop-up message that says "Dear Rockers, On May 31, Rock … Read more