Description
Created by ex-Reddit software engineer, Josh Wardle, Wordle is a simple word game that gives players six tries to guess a word of the day, and tells you how many letters you got right in every attempt.
The simple word game blew up after being by featured by celebrities like Jimmy Fallon, and as with anything that is popular, the knockoffs were not far behind. Tonnes of copycat apps sprung up on Apple's App Store and the Google Play Store.
Apple has now taken action and the Wordle clones have been booted off the app storefront, all except one called Wordle! A time-based game, which was released five years ago.
As The Verge reports, the issue was brought to light when one of the developers of a knockoff app started to brag on Twitter.
I don't think people realize, I don't need the app to be called Wordle for it to be successful. I can simply buy the Apple Search Ads slot for 'wordle' keyword and get cheap downloads and eventually the app, even with a diff name, would rank for Wordle since there is no app.
— Zach (@zachshakked) January 12, 2022
Apple then stepped in and pulled all the clone apps from its store. Still, this is far from a unique situation as online app stores have had a copycat problem for a while now, with everything from Flappy Bird to 2048 being copied.
What is unique is Apple's response to the situation, coming down heavily to protect the original IP whereas it has been more lukewarm in the past.
