Due to the rapid popularity of Sora, many App Store scammers have tried to get in on the act. After OpenAI’s invitation-only video generation mobile app was released last week, Apple’s App Store was flooded with fake apps also claiming to be “Sora” or “Sora 2.” The latter is a reference to the underlying new AI video model released alongside the mobile app.
These apps somehow made it through Apple’s app review process. It actually had a public listing on the App Store, even though it was trademarked by OpenAI and used a brand name that was fairly well-known in the tech industry even before the app’s debut.
More than a dozen Sora-branded apps were published on the App Store after the official app was released, according to research provided to TechCrunch upon request from app intelligence platform Appfigures. More than half of them specifically used “Sora 2” in their name. (One of them was discovered by Apple blogger and critic John Gruber, who called it the “App Store Scam of the Week.”)
Many of the apps weren’t newbies either. Some have been published in the App Store using different names since earlier this year or even last year. The imposters, including those on Google Play, have had around 300,000 mass installs to date, with over 80,000 installs since the official Sora app was released. (For comparison, OpenAI has since announced that Sora’s official mobile app has been downloaded 1 million times.)
Almost all of the imposters were updated shortly after the release of OpenAI’s Sora app, often with a name change, to capitalize on consumer demand and search.
It’s unclear how these apps got past Apple’s judges. Apple eventually removed many of them from the App Store, according to Appfigures.
The largest of the fake apps is called “Sora 2 – AI Video Generator” and is an obvious attempt to target searches for the keyword “sora” in the App Store. After the official app was released, the number of installations exceeded 50,000.
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As of this writing, several Sora-branded apps are still up and running, despite the potential for consumer confusion. However, one of them, “PetReels — Sora for Pets,” has only a few hundred installs. Another one, “Viral AI Photo Maker: Vi-sora”, tries to cram the word Sora into it, but it also doesn’t get much attention.
A little better is the app that uses the brand name “Sora 2” in its name (Sora 2 – Video Generator Ai). Over 6,000 downloads and counting.
These apps collectively generated more than $160,000 in revenue. This is a significant amount considering the short lifespan of the app.
Apple was asked for comment on how the Sora-branded apps were published and whether these remaining Sora-branded apps will be removed. There was no response prior to publication.
