You can apparently bag a name for your app without having to actually make it.
Domain squatting is a well-known phenomenon - the art of registering domain names so others can't, and then trying to sell them on for big bucks.
Now it seems iPhone's App Store has its own equivalent: app name squatting. It involves registering an app name with Apple without actually then releasing it.
UK developer Atomic Antelope has exposed the practise, having tried to register a game called Twitch, only to find the name had been taken - even though no such app existed on the App Store.
"It turns out that squatters have moved into the app store," says a blog post on the company's site.
"They’re worse than domain name squatters though, because you can’t even enter into negotiation with them. You don’t know who they are, or where they are. They take advantage of the fact that a developer can pretend to submit an app, but abandon their submission at the last moment, avoiding the need to actually create an application, but keeping hold of the app’s name. In limbo. Forever."
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UK mobile site Recombu has done some digging and found other developers complaining about the phenomenon on forums and blogs.
The key difference to domain name squatting, of course, is that nobody seems to be trying to make a profit - but instead reserving snappy titles for later use.
There doesn't appear to be any evidence of developers trying to register other companies' trademarks either - a common problem online.
Even so, it will be interesting to see if the issue of app name squatting blows up, and how Apple will react if it does.
One solution might be a time limit on registered names - if the app isn't live a certain number of weeks or months after the name was registered, it could become available again. Use it or lose it, in other words.
