I just found my app's daily sales reports manipulated... for a shot time though. Most of the daily sales reports dropped to zero, and now they come back. However I'm not sure whether they come back to the right numbers. And at least, I don't believe today's report. Though it's probably tech issue this time, how do we know for sure that Apple won't cheat on this? Are there mechanisms guarding this?
When you say manipulated, do you mean that iTunes Connect reported certain numbers for certain days, and then later you noticed those numbers changed? Or certain days the numbers were less then you expected?
Exactly. The numbers changed afterwards, to zero or to much smaller ones. Others have experienced that too: http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=120263 I wonder why it goes so quiet here. Were this case happened in a bank system, it would be an earthquake. So far I'm expecting an official notification from Apple about the event.
Apple is NOT a bank. This is not a big deal is why no one is bothering. Sometimes the accounting is messed up... DBs fail etc. Apple reserves the right to correct errors in their systems as do all the Ad firms on mobile. Out side of auditing them how would you prove that ANY of the numbers they have ever given you are correct? Did you suddenly have a massive spike in sales and you believe that was accurate?
It can be compared to a bank considered it's scale. For me, the accident happened in a few weeks. Hope it won't happen often since after. So far there are no notice from Apple explaining this. That should be noted. Because the accident happened only to FREE apps, and only in a short period (15 minutes also), it received little attention. However once happen, forever the doubt. A bank cannot find excuses in data errors. A bank cannot give false data either. (The victim will surely notice that.) But what if Apple gives false sales data? Can anyone notice this? I'm just asking if there are parties other than Apple that also ensure the data safety, or other balance mechanisms. Hope someone can answer.
And how do you differentiate then between legal sales and illegal downloads? The question is not if you can be cheated but why should they bother too to rob you a few dollars. One of the most wealthiest companies on this globe.. Makes no sense at all. Maybe people should not overreact because of a technical hickup.. no one is stealing your app store millions ask rpgguy he got his
That is a balance force. I didn't realize it before. (Shame for that...) As long as possible surveillance ways exist, the system is much more healthy.
For the FREE apps, really hard to differentiate between legal sales and illegal downloads. For the PAID ones, pretty easy: whether Apple get the money It's not a problem about trust. (Weeks ago I never thought there could be wrong data either.) Trust based merely on trust is dangerous for big systems. Now I know there are other ways to brace it, I worry less.
Actually a bank can and in fact it happens every day. Banks make mistakes and correct them later. In fact I have such an error sitting in my bank account this week...
Are you taking returns into account? If you sold 5 apps one day, 5 apps on the second (but the 5 from the first day returned) The report for your second day would read 0 as they would reclaim the monies from you. would result in a negative monetary balance in this case tho, so may not be the cause of this.
