Apple software bug incorrectly showed iOS app developers earning millions of dollars

Some App Store developers received a Community Chest card from Apple that said "App Store error in your favor. Collect $10.5 million. Hey, that's a reasonable way to explain what this story is all about. After all, Apple is acting like a monopoly according to the U.S. Department of Justice. What is really going on is a bug in the App Store Connect program which last week incorrectly showed some App Store developers earning over a million dollars from their apps listed in the App Store.

App Store Connect allows developers of apps listed in the App Store to view sales reports, and app analytics, and even invite users to test their apps using TestFlight. According to AppleInsider, developers have posted on social media that sales and proceeds data on App Store Connect is not accurate and in the 24-hour view, wide swings in the numbers can be seen over a few hours.

The bottom line is that App Store Connect is showing developers that they made much more money than normal with some showing earnings in the range of $2 million to $10.5 million. The latter figure is what developer Jeff Johnson saw in his account leading him to post on Mastodon, "Best day of my life." Developers impacted by the bug saw their proceeds hit a figure 999% more than what they should be.

Another iOS app developer James Thomson had $3.88 million in proceeds according to App Store Connect although Apple seemed to figure out that something was not right. On the top of Thomson's App Store Connect page was a message reading, "An issue exists with Sales and Proceeds data in the 24-hour view from April 10, 2024 10 p.m. UTC. We are working on resolving this."

The bug can lead some developers to spend much more money on ads than they planned to. App Store developers can arrange to automate their ad spending based on the proceeds per hour that they receive. When those numbers are artificially high because of a bug, especially as much as 999% higher to figures in the millions of dollars, some developers could end up on the hook for huge amounts of money used to advertise their apps automatically.